ENGLAND UNDER 
 EDWARD VII 
 
 * 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2008 with funding from 
 
 Microsoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/englandunderedwaOOfarrrich 
 
ENGLAND UNDER 
 EDWARD VII 
 
 BY 
 
 J. A. FARRER 
 
 *» • '• ♦« 
 
 LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD, 
 RUSKIN HOUSE, 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C. i. 
 

 First published in 1922 
 
 (All rights reserved) 
 
PREFACE 
 
 A PERIOD of eight centuries divides the reign of William 
 the Conqueror from that of Edward VII, and in that space 
 of time as many as thirty-four Sovereigns ruled, yet 
 Sir WilHam Harcourt once made bold to say that since 
 the Conqueror the seventh Edward was the greatest of all. 
 Whether by " greatest " he meant the greatest politically 
 or morally, or from both points of view combined, Sir WiUiam 
 did not explain, but in any case it is best to leave his judgment 
 undisputed, and to let the chief events of the King's reign 
 produce what impression they may on the minds of those 
 who may care to remember them. 
 
 In our domestic politics the King constitutionally played 
 little but an acquiescent part ; his duty was mainly to 
 assent to and sign such laws as were passed. Hence in 
 the story of his reign the legislation of the period from 1901 
 to 1910 only calls for rather summary treatment. But in 
 foreign politics the King availed himself to the full of the 
 freedom of action which the Constitution still allows to 
 a monarch, and it is in his action in this field that the interest 
 of his reign mainly lies. And, though some have contended 
 that at all times he was the mere servant of the foreign 
 policy of his Foreign Ministers, first of Lord Lansdowne, 
 and after 1905 of Sir Edward (Lord) Grey, the balance of 
 the best contemporary evidence, both English and foreign, 
 is to the effect that he was in the main his own Foreign 
 Minister, initiating, commanding, and controlling all our 
 policy towards other Powers. 
 
 It is this fact that lends its chief interest to the King's 
 reign, and renders it one of the most important in our political 
 history ; and for this reason our relations with foreign 
 
 735092 
 
6 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 Powers must inevitably fill the foremost place in any picture 
 of the first decade of this century. For it was then that 
 our foreign policy took a decided swerve to the side of France, 
 and that her secular rival, Germany, stepped into the place 
 of our leading potential enemy. It is, indeed, scarcely too 
 much to say that war, in spirit at least, raged between 
 ourselves and Germany during the whole period. This is 
 the chief historical fact of the reign, nor without much 
 allusion to this aspect of it can the causes ever be rightly 
 understood of that ultimate war of 1914 which was to 
 prove to the world a disaster of such illimitable magnitude 
 and of such measureless consequence. 
 
 The chief question of the King's reign is, how far 
 the mental international atmosphere produced by it was 
 conducive to the maintenance of peace or the reverse ; 
 and, since such atmosphere is mainly the product of the 
 speeches of leading statesmen and of influential organs of 
 the Press, it is in these above all that the causes of subsequent 
 events must be traced. For this purpose German no less 
 than English authorities have been consulted, in the hope 
 that in this way the point of view of both England and 
 Germany may be presented with the utmost possible fairness 
 and impartiality. History is only of value in so far as it is 
 able to rise above the bias of nationaUty and to deal with 
 the world's affairs from the same standpoint of indifference 
 that might be expected of an observer from another 
 planet. 
 
 The following list comprises the German authorities which 
 it has been found necessary and useful to consult : — 
 
 I. Professor Schiemann's Deutschland und die grosse 
 Politik : a republication of his weekly articles on foreign 
 affairs in the Kreuzzeitung from the year 1901. As giving 
 the feeling of the moment from week to week, this work 
 was justly described in the Quarterly Review (July 1908, 
 p. 283) as " more authoritative and influential than any 
 other regular feature of German journalism." In answer 
 to the rebuke of the Reviewer that he was habitually anti- 
 EngUsh, the Professor disclaimed all hostility to England : 
 
PREFACE 7 
 
 what he desired was an Anglo- German aUiance for the 
 strengthening of the world-position of both countries. It 
 was not England that he attacked, but only the systematic 
 Press campaign against Germany which he thought had 
 lasted from the time of the Venezuelan conflict in 1903. 
 The poisoning of English opinion by papers like The Times, 
 the National Review, and the Standard had made the 
 alUance he desired among the most improbable contingencies 
 of the future (viii. 317). 
 
 ^ 2. Prince Billow's Reden or Speeches, in three volumes, 
 from 1897 to 1909. As the years of the Chancellor's office 
 were almost concurrent with King Edward's reign, these 
 speeches are of special importance ; their general excellence 
 being so far recognized that Sir Charles Dilke spoke of one 
 of them made in November 1906 as ** one of the best ever 
 made by any statesman." 
 
 ^^ 3. Prince Billow's Deutsche Politik. This book was 
 published in 1916, in the middle of the war, and gives the 
 German view of the causes which produced it. 
 
 4. Count Reventlow's Deutschland Auswdrtige Politik. 
 This work is rather marred by a general avoidance of all 
 reference to the authorities for the Count's statements. 
 Its tone is far less moderate than that of Prince Billow, 
 and represents the more decided mistrust of this country 
 that was felt by certain sections of the German people. 
 
 5. Otto Hammann's Zur Vorgeschichte des Weltkrieges : 
 a German history of international politics from 1897 onwards. 
 The writer's official position gave him much insight into 
 the workings of the diplomacy of the period. 
 
 6.^aron von Siebert's Diplomatische Aktenstiicke zur 
 Geschichte der Ententepolitik der Vorkriegsjdhre. As the 
 editor was formerly Secretary of the Russian Embassy 
 in London, his collection of the diplomatic correspondence 
 between the Russian Foreign Ministers and the Russian 
 Ambassadors abroad between 1909 and 1912 is of the 
 greatest historical interest and importance. 
 
 7. Baron von Eckhardstein's Ten Years in the Court of 
 St. James\ The Baron was Charge d' Affaires in London 
 
8 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 whilst Count Hatzfeldt was the German Ambassador, and the 
 intimacy he had with the King, with Lord Lansdowne, and 
 Mr. Chamberlain gives special interest to his testimony 
 regarding the poHtics of the closing nineteenth century and 
 the opening twentieth. 
 
 t 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PAGE 
 
 1901: THE NEW REIGN AND THE NEW POLICY . . n 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 1902: THE BELATED PEACE WITH THE BOERS . . -35 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 1908: THE KING'S POLITICAL TRAVELS . . . .63 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 1904: THE ANGLO-FRENCH ENTENTE . . . .84 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 1905: MOROCCO DISTURBS EUROPE . . . . .114 
 
 r 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 1906: THE ALGE9IRAS CONFERENCE I45 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 1907: THE "COMING" WAR 174 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 1908: THE MEETING AT REVAL AND THE TRIPLE ENTENTE 204 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 1909: THE KING'S VISIT TO BERLIN 231 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 1910: THE END AND RESULTS OF THE REIGN . . .254 
 
 INDEX 267 
 
England Under Edward VII 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 1901 
 THE NEW REIGN AND THE NEW POLICY 
 
 The new King's long ex<ilusion, ,©3 ';Pri/5?ciD. -of. Wales, by 
 his mother's Court from all share in the foreign pohtics 
 of the country naturally prompted him to devote his talents 
 to the service of his country in that direction. He had 
 been " frequently restive," Lord KnoUys told Dilke on 
 May 3, 1882, at being debarred from all Foreign Office 
 information. Lord Granville, at that time Foreign Secretary, 
 would not let him have it, *' for fear he should let it out." 
 So the Prince tried, through Lord Knollys and Sir Henry 
 Ponsonby, to get the Queen to direct Lord Granville to 
 send him the confidential telegrams that came from abroad ; 
 but, as the Queen persisted in her refusal, it fell to Sir Charles 
 Dilke, then Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs in the 
 Gladstone Ministry, to keep the Prince privately informed 
 from day to day of the papers that passed at critical times 
 (Gwynn's Life of Dilke, i. 426-7). And again, when the 
 Prince applied to the Government in July 1888 for a military 
 command in Egypt, " the Queen at once interfered to stop 
 it," and the Cabinet decided to support the Queen's refusal 
 
 (**^. i- 473). 
 
 The great intimacy and friendship that arose in this 
 way between Dilke and the Prince lends interest to Dilke's 
 description of his character. The Prince was *' a good deal 
 under the influence of the last speaker," reflecting the mind 
 now of the Queen, now of Mr. Chamberlain, and anon of 
 
 11 
 
12 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 Dilke himself. In conversation, though no apparent im- 
 pression was made at the time, he hstened so well that, 
 when talking to somebody else, he would often repeat the 
 very thing he had appeared not to heed. Dilke thought 
 he had " less real brain-power than his mother," though 
 " very sharp in a way." It is more illuminating to know 
 that he was ** a strong Conservative and a still stronger 
 Jingo, really agreeing with the Queen's politics, and wanting 
 to take everything everywhere in the world, and to keep 
 everything if possible " (ib. i. 500). 
 
 Queen Victoria herself had often been strongly Jingo, 
 as when in the years .1876-8 she had used all her influence 
 with Lord Beaconsfield to embark on war with Russia ; 
 she could not ** remain the Sovereign of a country that was 
 letting itself down to kiss the feet of the great barbarians, 
 the retarders of all liberty and civilization that exists." 
 And her son on his accession undertook to tread in his 
 mother's footsteps. Assuming, therefore, that he carried 
 to the throne the annexationist ideals that he had cherished 
 as Prince, the King must have belonged to the same school 
 of thought as Mr. Chamberlain and Sir Alfred Milner, imder 
 whose auspices Jingoism in the South African War had then 
 held high revel for more than a year. Lord Suffield's state- 
 ment that when Prince he was " greatly distressed " at the 
 recall of Sir Bartle Frere from the Transvaal {Memories, 329) 
 is an indication of his probable poHtical inclination when 
 he succeeded to the throne on his mother's death on 
 January 22, 1901. 
 
 At that time Imperialism was at its height, and never 
 did King find himself in happier harmony with his sub- 
 jects. The new ideas of the century tended to a complete 
 reversal of those of the Victorian era. Abstention from 
 Continental quarrels, splendid isolation, were the fetishes of 
 an inglorious age, and unworthy of a mighty Empire. And 
 though The Times so recently as 1899 had declared that no 
 cordial understanding was possible between our country and 
 France, and that, whilst we had always respected the Ger- 
 man character, we had come to despise France, Imperialist 
 
THE NEW REIGN AND THE NEW POLICY 13 
 
 thought inchned to the reversal of this attitude, and to 
 see in France the best friend of the future. The King's 
 political sympathies with France were of long and strong 
 standing. Twenty years before, in November 1880, when 
 the Prince of Wales returned from a visit to BerUn, he 
 reported to Dilke that, whilst the German Court regarded 
 Dilke as " a most dangerous man " and as " a French spy," 
 it said the same of himself (Dilke's Life, i. 341). And so 
 it always remained. There is no reason to dispute Lord 
 Redesdale's statement that in Germany the King was 
 regarded as " a dangerous enemy always "( Memoirs, i. 178). 
 
 But that the King's Conservatism had its Liberal side 
 is illustrated by the curious fact attested by Mr. Legge, 
 that Reynolds's Newspaper, of decidedly Radical views, 
 was " carefully read by Queen Victoria's eldest son from 
 his early manhood until his death " (More About King 
 Edward, 132). The same writer portrays him as " a man of 
 moods," easily infected with an *' unreasoning dislike " 
 of any person calumniated, " very quick to take umbrage 
 at some purely imaginary offence " (King Edward in His 
 True Colours, 312). His was a will of an iron nature, " not 
 devoid of obstinacy " (Legge, in Fortnightly Review, xcii. 601) ; 
 " when he was opposed, when he was more than ordinarily 
 vexed, the inflexible will-power asserted itself : Le Roy le 
 veult. It was the end of it, the ukase of the autocrat, an 
 amalgam of Caesar and Charlemagne " (More About King 
 Edward, 13). 
 
 Happily other contemporary writers present a more 
 pleasing picture. Lord Redesdale dwells on his facility of 
 forgiveness, on his zeal in the service of his friends, on his 
 ready help to redress an injustice (Memoirs, i. 172). 
 And Lord Suffield, with the experience of forty years, 
 bears witness to his never saying a cross or unkind word 
 to anybody, to his never forgetting a friend or ever 
 refusing a courtesy. " Absolute impartiahty " and 
 essential fairness were other virtues recognized by Lord 
 Suffield, who came to love the King '* as much as one man 
 qoulci iQve ^notl^er.'* And hi^ great capacities were no 
 
14 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 less recognized in Germany than at home, Prince Biilow 
 declaring that his influence made itself felt from the very 
 beginning of the century (Deutsche Politik, 57). 
 
 A King of such a character on coming to the throne was 
 little likely to sink his opinions and wishes in those of his 
 Ministers, or to cease to take his lifelong interest in foreign 
 affairs at the very moment when the custom of the Consti- 
 tution gave him the widest powers to control them, as he 
 conscientiously hoped and intended, for the benefit both of 
 his own country and of the world. What King would consent 
 to be a mere puppet in the hands of his Ministers ? His 
 nephew, the Kaiser of Germany, was no such puppet, who, 
 though his Chancellor took all responsibiHty from his shoulders, 
 enjoyed the right of independent personal initiative (Billow's 
 Reden, i. 395). And our Constitution allowed the King of 
 England almost as free an influence over foreign policy, or 
 over the choice between peace and war. 
 
 The Kaiser, it was said at the time, *' took every oppor- 
 tunity of manifesting his friendly feeling for England and 
 her rulers " (Ann. Reg. 1901, 285). Much was forgiven 
 him by reason of his attendance at the Queen's last illness, 
 when Lord Suffield says that she died literally in his arms, 
 and at her funeral ; when he returned to Germany on 
 February 3rd no one stood higher than he did in popular 
 favour, and it was through cheering crowds that he drove 
 from Paddington Station to Marlborough House, whence, 
 after lunching with the King, he was accompanied by his 
 uncle to Charing Cross Station for his return journey. But 
 it was unfortunate that whatever favour he won in England 
 from his attendance at the funeral, he lost in Germany. 
 There was great indignation at the length of his stay in 
 England, and at his bestowal of the Order of the Black Eagle 
 on the victorious Lord Roberts, and it needed skilful speaking 
 by the Chancellor in the Reichstag to mitigate this ill-feeling 
 by contending that these things constituted no violation of 
 German neutrality as against the Boers, and by expressing 
 the hope that England and Germany would agree to work 
 together in future in peace and for peace (Reden, i. 185). 
 
THE NEW REIGN AND THE NEW POLICY 15 
 
 And on the day after the Queen's funeral he dwelt 
 on the fact that during the whole of her long reign 
 the Queen had studied always to cultivate peaceable and 
 friendly relations with Germany, with the imphcation of 
 a hope for a continuance of the same. 
 
 But the omens were not altogether propitious. In 
 Austria, for instance, when the Reichsrath met on 
 January 31st, and the President referred in appropriate 
 terms to the death of the Queen, some of the Pan-Germans 
 and Social Democrats indecently shouted out, " Down 
 with England ! " and " Long live the Boers ! " and the 
 German Press continued offensively anti-British in tone. 
 And many of the Kaiser's speeches, although England 
 and Germany had been brought into common action against 
 the Boxer rising in China, had left a bad impression which 
 the explanations or corrections by the Chancellor only 
 partially removed. The Kaiser's exhortation to the troops 
 departing for China on July 27, 1900, at Bremenshaven, 
 to give no mercy to the enemy, to take no prisoners from 
 them, was defended against Bebel, the Socialist, on the 
 ground that this terrible utterance was made at a time 
 when it was universally believed in Europe that all the 
 Europeans in Peking had been massacred (Reden, i. 148) ; 
 and three days later he contradicted Bebel's assertion that 
 the speech had been delivered subsequently to the arrival 
 of the news of the release of the prisoners. He affirmed 
 that it was believed at the time in every European Foreign 
 Office and in every Cabinet that no single European in 
 Peking had escaped death (ib. i. 153). Some other remarks 
 by the Kaiser, thought to be a menace to England, had 
 been made at the naval Casino at Wilhelmshaven on July 3, 
 1900, and called for explanation. The ocean, said the Kaiser, 
 was indispensable for Germany's greatness ; the time had 
 come when no decision could be taken on it without the 
 consent of Germany and her Kaiser ; in great questions 
 of foreign policy Germany was not going to be pushed aside ; 
 to prevent that by a ruthless use of the proper or even 
 sharpest means was only his duty and fairest privilege. 
 
16 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 These remarks had been made ten minutes after the arrival 
 of the dispatch announcing the murder in Peking of the 
 German Ambassador, Von Ketteler, which naturally caused 
 the Kaiser's blood to flow faster than usual through his 
 veins (ib. i. 149-53)- 
 
 But it may be doubted whether these extenuating explana- 
 tions received any hearing, and the Kaiser had to bear the 
 blame of the sympathy of his subjects with the Boer Republics. 
 It was forgotten that in May and June of 1899 the German 
 as well as the Dutch Government had sought to avert hostilities 
 by pressing on President Kruger the wisdom of moderation, 
 and by warning him of the danger that would threaten him 
 if he rejected offers of mediation (ib. i. 161-8). And the 
 war had not lasted many months before the indeterminate 
 nature of the laws of maritime warfare had brought us into 
 conflict with Germany on the sea. On December 28, 1899, 
 the German steamer Bundesrath was captured by an English 
 vessel, to be searched for contraband, and was sent to an 
 Enghsh Prize Court at Durban ; the mail steamer General 
 was detained at Aden on January 4, 1900 ; and so with 
 other vessels. As belligerents we were within our right 
 in thus searching suspected vessels, but it was claimed by 
 Germany that the right should not be exercised beyond 
 necessity nor in an improper manner. The General and the 
 Hertzog were released without much difficulty, but the case 
 of the Bundesrath was more serious, and for some weeks 
 we were " within a hair's-breadth of a rupture" with Germany 
 (Eckhardstein, Ten Years at the Court of St. James', 152). 
 It went so far that it had been decided in Germany to send 
 an Admiral with an ultimatum from the Kaiser to Lord 
 Salisbury ; but fortunately Lord Salisbury chanced to antici- 
 pate its arrival by authorizing Baron Eckhardstein to 
 telegraph to his Government his compliance with their 
 wishes, namely, the immediate release of the vessel with 
 adequate compensation and an assurance that German 
 mail steamers should not be troubled any more. No contra- 
 band having been found on board. Lord Salisbury felt 
 justified in thus acting without waiting for the Admiralty's 
 
THE NEW REIGN AND THE NEW POLICY 17 
 
 report (ib. 160-1). British captains were instructed not 
 to interfere with German merchantmen except in seas 
 near to the actual scene of hostiHties. And so Count Biilow 
 explained the facts on January 19, 1900 ; but of course 
 such an incident left its sting behind it, and, though it was 
 of the kind to justify Germany's chief reason for strengthening 
 her fleet, it naturally did not increase on our side the wish 
 that she should do so. 
 
 It was thus in a storm-tossed world that King Edward 
 found himself at his accession called upon to play his part. 
 Suspicions, jealousies, and intrigues between nations flourished 
 as seldom before. There had, indeed, been a sort of concert 
 of the Powers against China, but subject to a constant danger 
 of the triumphant forces turning their swords against one 
 another. A dispute, for instance, arose between the British 
 and the Russian military authorities about a strip of land 
 at Tien-tsin, which the Russians claimed as part of China's 
 concessions to them, but which the British had used for a 
 railway-siding. The sentries of the rival claimants were 
 posted within a yard of each other, and but for the wise 
 decision to submit the quarrel to arbitration there was very 
 good promise of a sanguinary war. Russia rather than 
 Germany was the Power which at that time most perturbed 
 her neighbours. The Siberian railway, making the Far 
 East accessible to her armies, was approaching completion, 
 and, indeed, reached it in November. And whilst the other 
 Powers were negotiating with China against her granting 
 special mining or railway concessions to foreigners in 
 Manchuria, Mongolia, or Turkestan, Russia was trying 
 to make a separate treaty with China which would have 
 given her a protectorate in Manchuria. But in this purpose 
 she was foiled by the protest of Great Britain, Germany, 
 the United States, and Japan. We, indeed, were bound by 
 an agreement with Germany of October 16, 1900, to maintain 
 the integrity of China, and Count Biilow declared on 
 March 15, 1901, that there had been no secret clauses about 
 Manchuria nor reference to it in this treaty,and that Germany's 
 only interests there were of a commercial character ; her 
 
 2 
 
18 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 only desire being the policy of the ** open door," or the equal 
 commercial privileges of all nations. 
 
 But the more immediate preoccupation of this country 
 at the King's accession was the South African trouble ; 
 for despite official assurances in the autumn of 1900 that 
 the war was over, assurances which went far to secure the 
 Unionist Government a continuance of power at the General 
 Election of 1900, the war took on such a prospect ot inter- 
 minability that many men began to advocate a settlement 
 on terms as distinct from an unconditional surrender, to 
 be followed by the loss of Boer independence, on which Lord 
 Salisbury's Government insisted. This division about the 
 war was the predominant political issue of the year, all 
 domestic legislation sinking to a position of comparative 
 insignificance. It is not unusual to mark the beginning of 
 a new reign by an amnesty to enemies or by the termination 
 of a war, but there was no hint of such a thing in the King's 
 Speech from the Throne to Parliament on February 14, 1901 ; 
 and even further war was indicated by the statement that 
 proposals would be submitted to its judgment " for increasing 
 the efficiency of my military forces." Yet the King wished 
 the war stopped. Says Mr. Wilfrid Scawen Blunt : " The 
 very first object which he set himself to bring about as King 
 was to put an end to the Boer War, not so much perhaps 
 on any humane principle as ending what he was well aware 
 had become the cause of vast discredit to England, and 
 in this he succeeded, notwithstanding the Tory obstinacy of 
 those in power " (Diaries, ii. 34). Again : " He stopped the 
 Boer War, knowing how unpopular it was making England 
 on the Continent and everywhere, and how much we were 
 becoming despised for our childish attempts at subduing 
 this sturdy little people " (ib. ii. 321). 
 
 Nevertheless the war dragged on for another year, a 
 Conference on February 28th at Middleburg between Lord 
 Kitchener and Louis Botha to discuss peace terms ending 
 in nothing. Botha " tried very hard for some kind of 
 independence," but was met by an absolute refusal on 
 Kitchener's part even to discuss a point which seemed to 
 
THE NEW REIGN AND THE NEW POLICY 19 
 
 him so fraught with the prospect of a renewal of the war in 
 the future. So, as the terms offered by Mr. Chamberlain 
 and Sir Alfred Milner, though not illiberal in themselves, 
 fell short of this most important concession of all, the Peace 
 Conference failed entirely, and the war continued its miser- 
 able course, to the great disappointment of all reasonable 
 men and to the growing disfavour of England in all neutral 
 countries. The presumption is, therefore, that the King's 
 personal wish for peace was so far lukewarm as to be con- 
 ditional on annexation accompanying it. 
 
 The customary phrases of ** seeing it through '* or of 
 " fighting to a finish " served as substitutes for all argument 
 or reflection, and Mr. Balfour waxed eloquent on the wisdom 
 of not withdrawing our hands from the plough to which 
 we had put them. By the simple plan of declaring the 
 enemy's country annexed every man fighting for his country 
 became a rebel and ceased to have the claim to fair treatment 
 of an ordinary enemy. The recrudescence of the war, after 
 Lord Roberts* occupation of Pretoria in August 1900 and 
 the proclamation that therewith the war was over, followed 
 by renewed hostilities by the Boers in Lord Roberts' rear, 
 led to great embitterment of feeling. The consequent 
 burning on a large scale of the enemy's homes and villages, 
 necessitating the herding of homeless non-combatants in 
 concentration camps, where the mortality was on so appal- 
 ling a scale that as many as 261 children out of 1,100 died 
 in six or seven weeks before March 21, 1901, happily did 
 not pass without protest, though without result, from many 
 Liberal statesmen of weight and influence opposed to the 
 Unionist Government. Thus on February i6th, in the 
 debate on the Address, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, 
 the Liberal leader, did not hesitate to denounce the military 
 conduct of the war, nor to press for offering the enemy such 
 terms as, if offered after the occupation of Pretoria, should 
 have ended the war. This was the signal for a battle-royal 
 
 [5 throughout the year between divergent Liberal opinions ; 
 
 U nor could any greater issue have divided parties than the 
 question whether the war was just or unjust, or its conduct 
 
20 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 conformable or not with the customs of civilized warfare. 
 But the contention that the Government's opinion on these 
 issues was the only possible right and patriotic one, and 
 any criticism wrong or treasonable, was intolerable ; and 
 Campbell-Bannerman rightly repudiated the doctrine that 
 in time of war it was the duty of an Opposition to sit still 
 idly whilst the power of the country was being used for 
 purposes of which it disapproved. Lord Rosebery's regret, 
 expressed on July 19th at the City Liberal Club, that the 
 Liberal Party had not shown a heartier sympathy with 
 the national opinion about the war (Ann. Reg. 1901, 165), 
 postulated that any and every war that was favoured of the 
 multitude demanded the assent and approval of every lover 
 of his country ; and we owe it to Campbell-Bannerman, 
 Mr. Lloyd George, and Lord Morley that this duty of passive 
 acquiescence was not sufiered to take root in our pohtical 
 traditions. 
 
 But Sir Henry's claim at Edinburgh on May 31st, that 
 the whole Liberal Party, save an " insignificant section," 
 was united in its condemnation of " the most unwise as well 
 as the most unworthy policy of enforcing unconditional sur- 
 render " upon the enemy, was open to the objection that 
 the " insignificant section " of Liberals had for its leaders 
 poUticians Hke Mr. Asquith, Mr. Haldane, and Sir Edward 
 Grey. These Liberal ImperiaHsts and the others hurled 
 contradictory poUcies against one another all the year. 
 A Liberal meeting at the Queen's Hall on June 19th, presided 
 over by Mr. Labouchere, demanded the immediate cessation 
 of "an unjust and desolating war " by the offer of complete 
 independence to the two Republics ; whilst the next day, 
 at the Liverpool Street Station, Mr. Asquith pronounced 
 the restoration of such independence impossible, declaring 
 that the Boer War had been forced upon us, and had neither 
 been intended nor desired by the Government. The general 
 note of all Liberal Imperialist speeches was the absolute 
 justice and necessity of the war ; the impossibility of ending 
 it on any terms short of annexation ; the comparative 
 humanity of the concentration camps ; the righteousness 
 
THE NEW REIGN AND THE NEW POLICY 21 
 
 of the devastation ; and unbounded confidence in Sir Alfred 
 Milner. When Sir Alfred returned on May 24th for a brief 
 holiday, he was driven off straight to Marlborough House, 
 there and then to be created Lord Milner of St. James' and 
 Cape Town ; with this enhanced dignity being afforded the 
 opportunity the very next day, at a luncheon given to him 
 by Mr. Chamberlain at Claridge's Hotel, of soundly castigating 
 his political adversaries. 
 
 Those adversaries, however, continued unabashed. Mr. 
 Frederic Harrison, in the Daily News of May 30th, denounced 
 the farm-burnings as " a very brutal episode in an infamous 
 war," and as expressly forbidden by the Hague Conference. 
 And Lord Morley on June 4, at Montrose, took the same 
 line. Then on June 14th came the dinner to Sir Henry 
 Campbell-Bannerman and Sir William Harcourt at the 
 National Reform Union, at which the former put the riddle, 
 of the answer to which he never heard the end, " When is 
 a war not a war ? When it is carried on by methods of 
 barbarism." The phrase provoked his opponents to such 
 wrath that three days later (June 17th) in a debate on the 
 camps nearly fifty Liberal Unionists abstained from voting 
 by way of protesting against their leader's speech. The 
 most trustworthy evidence of the sufferings endured in 
 these camps came from Miss Hobhouse, who spoke with 
 the competence of an eye-witness ; but the managers of 
 many halls in the country would by no means suffer her to 
 be heard, lest her report should throw a darker shade on 
 the official picture presented by the Government. But 
 Mr. Asquith on September 28th, at Ladybank, came to the 
 Government's aid with the assurance that we were fighting 
 the war " with clean hands," with a clear conscience, and 
 in a just cause : to which comforting words Campbell- 
 Bannerman replied at Stirling on October 2nd that he 
 still adhered to his former statement, to the effect that 
 the burning of farms, the butchering or driving off of flocks 
 and herds, the destruction of mills, or the smashing of 
 furniture and of agricultural implements, were methods of 
 barbarism, as he had said before. 
 
22 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 Much at that time depended for the future mutual 
 relations between England and Germany on the mutual 
 good relations between their Sovereigns, whose common 
 domestic sympathies drew them strongly together. Nor 
 could those relations have started with better promise 
 than at the time of the Queen's funeral. The King and the 
 Kaiser had long poHtical talks together, in the course of 
 which the King expressed strong dislike for Russia and 
 France, using strong language about them, and declared 
 that Lord Lansdowne had " no sympathies at all for France " 
 (Eckhardstein, 191). Hardly had the Kaiser returned to 
 Germany on February 3rd than on February 23rd the King 
 went to Cronberg to pay his last visit to his dying sister, the 
 Kaiser's mother, the Empress Frederick, whose funeral he and 
 the Queen attended at Potsdam on August 13th of the same 
 year. The Kaiser and the King bore some resemblance 
 to one another ; Lord Esher says that no one could see 
 them together without noticing " a curious hkeness to 
 each other " {Influence of King Edward, 56). And Prince 
 Hohenlohe, who was German Chancellor from 1894 to his 
 death, at the age of eighty-two, on July 6, 1901, was always 
 reminded by the Kaiser of his grandfather. Prince Albert, 
 both by his voice and by his earnestness of manner. The 
 Kaiser struck him in 1888 as " a wise, conscientious man," 
 who took delight in amusing things and had a fresh, hvely 
 manner of talking (Memoirs, ii. 395). 
 
 But difference of disposition counts for more than genealo- 
 gical affinity, and it would seem, though Lord Esher says 
 that the uncle and nephew had mutual respect and real 
 admiration for one another, that a spirit of antipathy soon 
 arose between them. Mr. Legge has stated that their mutual 
 relations " lapsed into comparative calm only when they 
 were apart from one another " (Fortnightly Review, xcii. 611), 
 and he reports the King, when Prince of Wales, as cutting 
 the Kaiser dead on one occasion at Cowes (King Edward in His 
 True Colours, 261) : an incident which, if it occurred at 
 all, must have occurred on one of the Kaiser's four visits 
 to Cowes before the year 1896 ; for after the stir made in 
 
THE NEW REIGN AND THE NEW POLICY 28 
 
 England by his telegram to President Kruger after the 
 Jameson raid he took no more part in the yachting regatta. 
 At those regattas there was constant friction between the 
 King and his nephew, and one day Baron Eckhardstein 
 heard the Kaiser during a dinner on the Hohenzollern, 
 with English present, refer to his uncle as " an old peacock *' 
 [Eckhardstein, 56). And wars have arisen from lighter 
 causes than from a nephew's calling an uncle an old peacock. 
 But it was not only with the German Kaiser that the 
 King was thrown into close contact at his accession. He had 
 long been intimate with many French statesmen, and notably 
 with M. Clemenceau, who is said to have treated him more 
 familiarly than any of the King's most intimate friends 
 would have done, even when he was only Prince of Wales 
 (Legge, More About King Edward, 328). His friend M. 
 Delcass^, Foreign Minister of France since 1898, wished, 
 like the King, to turn the current estrangement between 
 their respective countries into a friendship. So no sooner 
 was the King in a position to use his influence over foreign 
 affairs than, as Mr. Blunt says, " his natural instinct was to 
 use it in the interests of peace, especially with France, 
 where the chief friction was found, and from the first days 
 of his accession he busied himself to bring about a settle- 
 ment of their international differences " (Diaries, ii. 33). 
 But at the first an alHance with Germany was more likely 
 than one with France. Ever since 1875 there had been 
 tentative movements in such a direction, the overtures 
 coming from Bismarck, who during the Berlin Congress 
 in 1878 prevailed on Lord Beaconsfield to accede to his 
 desire for an Anglo-German defensive treaty (Eckhardstein, 
 133-5). Lord SaHsbury, when Prime Minister, meeting 
 the Kaiser on August 8, 1895, on the Hohenzollern at Cowes, 
 is said to have proposed a partition of the Ottoman Empire 
 between England, Germany, and Austria : a proposal which 
 must have united us with the Triple AlHance (ib. 57-9). 
 In 1898 and 1899 similar approaches to an alliance were 
 renewed, but more serious and more nearly successful negotia- 
 tions began in 1901, when in January Mr, Chamberlain and 
 
24 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 the Duke of Devonshire met Baron Eckhardstein at Chats- 
 worth, and Chamberlain declared himself in favour of a 
 " combination with Germany and an association with the 
 Triple Alliance *' as preferable to such a junction with 
 Russia and France (ib. 185). Negotiations to that end 
 lasted from the middle of March to the end of May. On 
 March 9th, Baron Holstein, on behalf of Germany, suggested 
 a defensive alliance between Germany and ourselves, and 
 on our side on April 9th Lord Lansdowne discussed with 
 Eckhardstein in general terms the problem of our accession 
 to the Triple Alliance {ib, 204, 207, 214). The King, too, is 
 described as in 1901 " quite favourable to an aUiance " 
 {ib. 60). On April 19th he assured Eckhardstein that he 
 had for years had the greatest sympathy with Germany ; 
 that he looked upon England and Germany as natural 
 allies, and thought that together they could police the world 
 and secure its lasting peace, Germany could have as much 
 of colonies and commercial development as she wanted : 
 there was room enough in the world for both of them. He 
 had always tried to dissipate the very great mistrust which 
 some of his Ministers, especially Lord Salisbury, felt for the 
 Kaiser and Count Biilow, but he could not contend for 
 ever with the " perpetual vagaries *' of the Kaiser, nor with 
 the abuse and threats of the Flottenverein and its organs 
 {ib. 217). There was even some movement towards an 
 Anglo-German- Japanese combination, or towards an Anglo- 
 Japanese agreement with the Triple Alliance (Hammann, 
 Vorgeschichte, 86-8). But of all these negotiations the Kaiser 
 was kept in the dark till the February of the following year, 
 when it needed some tact on the part of the Chancellor to 
 tranquillize his Sovereign on the matter. Yet when the 
 Kaiser in November 1899 had, with Count Biilow, met 
 Chamberlain at Windsor, and the Colonial Secretary had 
 raised the question of an alliance, the latter got the distinct 
 impression that both the Kaiser and Count Biilow were 
 " very favourable to the idea " (Eckhardstein, 130). And 
 the Kaiser had manifested great satisfaction when told of 
 the conversation at Chatsworth regarding an alUance ; so 
 
THE NEW REIGN AND THE NEW POLICY 25 
 
 that it is reasonable to regret that his support was withheld 
 from a scheme which, had it not been wrecked by mutual 
 mistrust, opened up so hopeful an avenue to a peaceful 
 evolution of European history. In any case it is remarkable 
 that at a time when the German Press was raging its worst 
 against us in connection with the Boer War our leading 
 statesmen, the King, Lord Lansdowne, the Duke of Devon- 
 shire, and Mr. Chamberlain were seriously desirous of an 
 alliance with the offending country. And it is also of interest 
 to know that in these discussions of 1901 the ultimate partition 
 of Morocco between ourselves and Germany was part of the 
 agreement (ib. 222). 
 
 Baron Eckhardstein is probably right in thinking that 
 the failure of an alliance with Germany in 1901 led to the 
 encirclement policy against Germany which finally issued 
 in war. Our statesmen, being obsessed with the idea that 
 it was necessary to side either with the Triple Alliance or 
 with France and Russia, the latter alternative naturally 
 presented itself as the only alternative to the scheme that 
 had failed. Thus it was that the political wind began to 
 veer rapidly round from Germany to France, and continued 
 in that direction all through the King's reign. Queen 
 Victoria had always had strong German sympathies, and 
 for the last ten years of her reign our diplomacy had laboured 
 to remove causes of friction with Germany ; as by the 
 Anglo-German agreement of 1890, which defined British 
 and German spheres of influence in East, West, and South-west 
 Africa ; by the agreement about the Portuguese Colonies, 
 in the event of their becoming purchasable ; by our support 
 of Germany in 1897, when she occupied Kiau-chow ; by 
 the Yangtse agreement about China in 1900 ; and most 
 of this after and in spite of the Kruger telegram in 
 January 1896. The Press, led by The Times, quickly 
 reflected the new direction, and with the new reign soon 
 came in a new journalism. 
 
 Unfortunately M. Delcass^ was regarded in Germany 
 as personifying in a higher degree than any other French 
 Stcitesman the long-nursed policy of revenge for 1870 
 
26 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 (Billow, Deutsche Politik, 99). The recovery of the lost 
 provinces was well understood to be the hope of the alliance 
 between France and Russia. Therefore when M. Delcasse, 
 on April 22nd, went to St. Petersburg, and was there enter- 
 tained by the Czar and his Ministers for five days, it was 
 natural for Germany to suspect that the business between 
 them was not solely concerned with the terms of a loan, 
 but had some political reference to herself. And this un- 
 easiness was still further increased when on September 8th 
 King Edward also met the Czar at a family gathering at 
 the Danish Court at Fredensborg ; an Anglo-French-Russian 
 combination against the Triple Alliance cast its shadow 
 before the future. 
 
 Thus it was that rivalry for the favour of Russia, the 
 land of the countless legions, became for many years the 
 leading motive of the diplomacy of the Powers, and so open 
 a courtship of Russia as seemed implied by the Delcasse 
 visit could so little be allowed to pass unchallenged that 
 the Kaiser gave a banquet in May at Metz, in the presence 
 of the Russian Ambassador, in honour of the Czar's birthday ; 
 thereby giving no slight offence to France by this indirect 
 ratification of the Treaty of Frankfort of 1871, in the very 
 capital of Alsace-Lorraine, and only partially atoning for 
 it at a military dinner at BerHn on May 30th by toasting 
 some French officers and the whole French Army in very 
 generous terms. 
 
 The King's meeting with the Czar on September 8th 
 at Fredensborg was followed almost immediately by the 
 Kaiser's meeting with him on September nth in the Bay 
 of Danzig, where together they watched the Kaiser's ships 
 manoeuvring and spent what the Kaiser afterwards referred 
 to in a letter to the Czar as some " merry hours " (Letter 
 of January 3, 1902). The Kaiser declared that this happy 
 meeting had placed on an unshakable basis his conviction 
 of the security of the peace of Europe for many years. But 
 the Czar and his wife, two most uncertain quantities, were 
 at that very time on their way to France, where they were 
 met on September i8th, off Dunkirk by President Loubet, 
 
THE NEW REIGN AND THE NEW POLICY 27 
 
 and after a naval review of the French Northern Fleet, 
 were entertained for three days at the Palace of Compi^gne, 
 and shown what the French Army could do at the great 
 military manoeuvres near Rheims. At the luncheon at Fresnes 
 the usual toasts were exchanged between the Czar and the 
 President, and the usual but meaningless stress laid on the 
 purely defensive and pacific nature of the alliance, and on 
 the necessity of the balance of power in Europe ; but the 
 enthusiastic welcome of the Russian autocrat by the French 
 multitudes was really for the vast Russian armies of which 
 the Czar's presence was interpreted as an almost certain 
 promise. Otherwise what had France in common with 
 Russia ? What reason was there for such ecstasies over 
 a despotism under which in March some four hundred Moscow 
 students had been consigned to a felons* prison and Count 
 Tolstoi, excommunicated by the Holy Synod, had written 
 and published two letters to the Czar against the religious 
 persecution and the '* terrible cruelties " which were com- 
 mitted in the Czar's name ? But this side of Russian Hfe 
 counted for nothing in the scale against the military force 
 for which the word Russia stood, and which France so sorely 
 needed for any effective war with Germany for the recovery 
 of her lost provinces. 
 
 For the success of such a policy English as well as Russian 
 aid was clearly desirable, and M. Delcasse's efforts in this 
 direction soon met with no unready response from our 
 side. Our pull towards France was marked by a campaign, 
 chiefly in our Conservative Press {The Times, Spectator, 
 and National Review), for an Anglo-French entente and the 
 obliteration of our traditional sympathies with Germany 
 {Schiemann, iv. 123). The Press of the world, in response 
 to this new direction, busied itself with the discussion of a 
 League of France, Russia, and England for the overthrow 
 of Germany {ib. i. 236) ; and this combination was regarded 
 by M. Hanotaux, once Foreign Minister of France, as the 
 joint work of King Edward and Mr. Chamberlain {La Politique 
 de VEquilihre, 296). An article in the Fortnightly Review for 
 April, entitled " Germany and England," caused special 
 
28 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 indignation ; the writer representing the Kaiser as only 
 " friendly [to England] on the surface, but politically and 
 conimercially most hostile/' and desirous of an understanding 
 with Russia against us. The writer, who purported to be 
 an Englishman, signed himself Ignotus, but was believed 
 by Schiemann to be the Russian writer Wesselitski, who 
 as London correspondent of the Novya Vremya was in the 
 habit of sending " poisonous '* telegrams and communications 
 to that paper (ib. ii. 240 and Hammann, 115). Germany 
 was perhaps more needlessly supersensitive to Press attacks 
 than other countries. Baron Holstein, who at that time 
 was chief conductor of German foreign policy, is said to have 
 followed with the greatest interest the attitude of our Press, 
 and to have often become " wildly excited " by statements 
 not only in our leading daily papers but in the most unimpor- 
 tant periodicals (Eckhardstein, 132). On the other hand, 
 so violent were many German papers against England 
 that King Albert of Saxony was so concerned at their possible 
 effect on Anglo-German relations that he could often scarcely 
 sleep for thinking of it {ib. 142). 
 
 Books as well as speeches and articles constitute the 
 fuel which produces the mental atmosphere of the world 
 out of which comes ultimately peace or war ; and from this 
 point of view certain books of the time are of historical 
 interest. Many German books gave needless provocation, 
 but all the guilt was not on their side. One of the worst 
 books of this sort was a French book of this year : 
 L' Europe et la question d'Autriche au seuil du XX Siicle, 
 by M. Andr^ Ch6radame, whose theme was Pan-Ger- 
 manism, and which started a scare that spread a panic 
 through Europe. Confident that Pan-Germanism aimed 
 at the invasion and annexation of Austria by Germany, 
 he scraped together a number of extracts from writings and 
 speeches which might adroit of such an interpretation. 
 All countries have their dreamers of territorial expansion, 
 and Germany, of course, had her share of such visionaries. 
 The Pan-German League (Alldeuischer Verband), founded 
 in 1895, was a development from the Allgemeine Dentscher 
 
THE NEW REIGN AND THE NEW POLICY 29 
 
 Verband, founded in 1886 by Dr. Peters for the promotion 
 of German colonial expansion, and in the intervening years 
 its membership had grown from 5,600, with twenty-seven 
 local groups, to 21,361, with 185 local groups, in April 1900. 
 This was a marked increase, but what were such numbers 
 from a population of 50 millions ? Much of the literature 
 on which Cheradame relied was anonymous and correspond- 
 ingly valueless : like Ein Deutscher Weltreich (" A German 
 World-Kingdom "), published in 1892 above the signature 
 of three stars ; or Grossdeutschland und Mitteleuropa um 
 das Jahr 1950 (" Great Germany and Mid-Europe about 
 the Year 1950 "), by an Alldeutscher, 1895 ; or Osterreich's 
 Zusammenbruch (" The Break-up of Austria "), 1899. But 
 the most terrifying of these forecasts of futurity was the 
 terrible Germania Triumphans, 1895, which foretold the 
 conquests Germany was to make from 1900 to 1915. In 
 the year 1912 the fleets of Germany, France, and Italy would 
 proceed against the United States, and at the victorious 
 peace Mexico would be allotted to Germany, and Central 
 America to France ; then in 1913 the German Kaiser, in 
 reply to a protest from England, would personally lead the 
 combined fleets against her, and, after disembarking and 
 winning a great battle, would enter London in triumph as 
 a preliminary to the conquest of the whole world (232). 
 As such sorry stuff came to be printed and read and discussed 
 in certain journals, the German Government was represented 
 as behind it, because it put no obstacle in the way of exposing 
 such Pan-German nonsense in the bookshop windows ! 
 (ib. 243). 
 
 Of course in this sketch the Kaiser figured as the chief 
 Pan-German of all. Had he not once said that in difficult 
 decisions the pen's only power lay in the support of the 
 sword ? Was he not haunted with the idea of connecting 
 Hamburg with Trieste ? Whatever he did, aimed at the 
 invasion and annexation of Austria. His new fleet was 
 pointed as much against Austria as against England {ib. 263) ; 
 the new military law of 1899 for increasing the Army, the 
 new fortifications on the French and the Russian frontiers. 
 
80 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 were meant, not for war against those countries, but for 
 preventing them from interfering, should the death of the 
 aged Austrian Emperor open the way to the succession of 
 the German Kaiser to his dominions. Yet what step was 
 ever taken during the next fourteen years to fulfil the 
 Ch6radame prediction ? 
 
 Meantime Lord Kitchener's proclamation of August 7th, 
 that all burghers who had not surrendered by September 15th 
 should be banished permanently from South Africa, had 
 no other result than to make the resistance to our arms 
 fiercer than before. Indignation in neutral countries rose 
 perceptibly higher ; and on October 25th, at Edinburgh, 
 Mr. Chamberlain spoke of the possibility of even severer 
 measures becoming necessary, but adding that, if they were, 
 they could never approach in cruelty to the precedents set 
 by other nations in Poland, in the Caucasus, in Algeria, 
 in Tongking, in Bosnia, or in the Franco-German War of 
 1870. The remark was a fair hitting round in equal measure 
 at every civilized country, but Germany took the attack 
 as specially aimed at herself, and expressed her wrath un- 
 restrainedly in newspaper articles, in offensive caricatures 
 of the British Army, and in indignation meetings all over 
 the country. The situation was growing dangerous, and 
 Lord Rosebery on December 20th, at Chesterfield, not unfairly 
 rebuked Chamberlain for his Edinburgh speech, by which 
 he added fuel to a flame already sufficiently alight. The 
 Liberal ex-Premier declared that he knew no parallel to 
 the ill-will with which England was regarded almost 
 universally by the people of Europe ; and some of this 
 hostility he attributed to Mr. Chamberlain's oratory, who 
 was apt to forget that what was good enough for home 
 consumption might not be equally palatable to foreign palates. 
 Then on January 8, 1902, Count Biilow, despite advice to 
 the contrary, made a bitter retort to the Edinburgh speech, 
 in which he quoted Frederick the Great's reply to some one 
 who disparaged the German Army, " Let him alone, do not 
 be excited, he is biting on granite," and this rhetorical 
 duel between the two countries put a final end to all idea of 
 
THE NEW REIGN AND THE NEW POLICY 81 
 
 that alliance for which Chamberlain hinaself had been 
 so desirous earlier in the year. 
 
 That the ill-feeling against us roused by the Boer War 
 never found expression in a European coalition to bring the 
 war to an end justifies some surprise ; nor, indeed, was the 
 idea of intervention wholly absent. But the Kaiser, in a 
 conversation with the British Ambassador, Sir F. Lascelles, 
 in April 1901, repeatedly assured him of his determination 
 never to be drawn into such intervention (Eckhardstein, 164). 
 There was a nefarious game on the part of France and 
 Russia to suggest such intervention to Germany and then, 
 on her refusal to join, to accuse her of having proposed it. 
 The first attempt was in August 1899, when Jules Hansen 
 succeeded in conveying the idea that the German Govern- 
 ment had made definite proposals to France for intervention, 
 but that France had indignantly rejected them. When 
 the King, at first alarmed by this report, learnt from Eckhard- 
 stein that the refusal to intervene came from Germany 
 he exclaimed, *' I have no longer any doubt at all that 
 everything that comes from Petersburg and Paris is only 
 a low intrigue to set England and Germany against one 
 another ** (ib, 122). In February 1900 Germany again 
 refused a Russian proposal of intervention, and again in 
 October 1901. On this last occasion the Russian Charge 
 d' Affaires in London told our Foreign Office that Germany 
 had made repeated efforts to get Russia and France to 
 intervene on behalf of the Boers, but that all such approaches 
 had been virtuously declined. This was just the reverse 
 of what really happened, and the Duke of Devonshire con- 
 temptuously exclaimed, " That is what the Russians call 
 truth ! *' (ib. 165). Nevertheless the legend of a German 
 design to intervene passed into the current belief of the 
 time. 
 
 Count Billow explained why such intervention never 
 came to pass. Highly popular as it would have been in 
 Germany, and certainly as she might have counted on the 
 help of France, such community of interest was only 
 apparent ; had Germany gone to war with England, French 
 
82 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 policy would have changed. Realizing that what lay nearest 
 to her heart was the recovery of Metz and Strasburg, France 
 would have left Germany in the lurch. There would have 
 been the risk too of England's strangling the young Ger- 
 man fleet in its very infancy. To avert that danger by 
 an irremediable quarrel with England imposed neutrality 
 on Germany as the only wise policy to pursue (Deutsche 
 Politik, 32-3). 
 
 A motive that operates against the termination of any 
 war operated in the case of the Boer War; for there were 
 certain quarters in Germany where its continuance meant 
 a continuance of pecuniary profit. It is a strange rule 
 of International Law that, whilst a nation as a State violates 
 neutrality by supplying one belligerent with munitions of 
 war against another, its nationals may freely do so, subject 
 only to the nsk of capture. Thus Baron Richthofen, the 
 German Foreign Minister, openly admitted that private 
 German firms sent the British Government large stores 
 of guns, powder, cartridges, saddles, and provisions against 
 the Boers ; and Count Goluchowski, the Austrian Foreign 
 Minister, had to deny that the supply by private individuals 
 to England of arms and horses was a breach of neutrality. 
 A saner law would certainly prohibit the supply of war 
 materials or of assistance of any kind from any source to 
 belligerent States. But, as things were, whilst public 
 foreign opinion might be all on the side of the Boers, 
 private profiteering injured them as much as it could, 
 with sublime indifference to the consequences to the weaker 
 belligerent. 
 
 Clearly the relations of the Continental Powers to one 
 another were far too inharmonious to admit of any such 
 co-operation as an armed coalition implied. The great 
 struggle of the time was between France and Germany for 
 the soul of Russia. Bismarck had always laid great stress 
 on Germany's retaining the friendship of Russia as a safe- 
 guard against an aUiance between France and Russia. 
 For this reason he had effected the Insurance Treaty between 
 Germany and Russia, in virtue of which Germany was to 
 
i 
 
 THE NEW REIGN AND THE NEW POLICY 33 
 
 allow Russia a free hand in Bulgaria and Constantinople 
 in return for Russia's neutrality in any fresh war between 
 Germany and France. But when Caprivi succeeded Bismarck 
 as Chancellor this treaty lapsed, much to the vexation 
 of Bismarck, who thus saw the greatest obstacle removed 
 from that danger of a Franco-Russian coalition against 
 Germany which he deemed it his own greatest merit to have 
 averted. His fears were justified ; for shortly afterwards 
 Russia, freed from her German connection, entered into 
 an alliance with France. 
 
 The terms of the military convention or treaty made 
 in 1893 and 1894 between Russia and France were to the 
 effect that, if Germany attacked either Power, each should 
 help with all their available power, namely, 1,300,000 men 
 from France and 700,000 to 800,000 men from Russia, so 
 that Germany might be attacked at the same time on both 
 her eastern and her western front ; and this treaty was to 
 last as long as the Triple Alliance lasted (Poincare's Origines 
 de la Guerre, 61). But if Germany had thus lost Russia 
 as an ally she might still keep her as a friend, and for this 
 purpose Bismarck was even ready to abandon Austria and 
 the Triple Alliance ; a difference of opinion on this point 
 between himself and the young Kaiser Wilhelm II, who 
 was for adhering to the Austrian Alliance, being one of the 
 chief causes of quarrel between them in March 1890 
 (Hohenlohe's Memoirs, ii. 412). The Kaiser was firm for 
 loyalty to Austria, even at the risk of war with France 
 and Russia (ib. 413). A few years later, when Count Biilow 
 succeeded to Prince Hohenlohe as Chancellor, the Russian 
 friendship was still cultivated, and with so much success 
 that, owing to the unwillingness of Russian statesmen to 
 be entangled in France's policy of revenge, and to the 
 disappointment of France at the long-deferred hopes of 
 active aid from Russia, French diplomacy turned to the 
 idea of an entente with England as more likely to produce 
 fruit for her aspirations (Biilow, Deutsche Politik, 84). By 
 frequent correspondence and by the interchange of personal 
 visits between the Kaiser and the Czar it was sought success- 
 
 3 
 
84 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 fully to prevent Russia from committing herself too deeply 
 to the cause of France. 
 
 Thus the personal element came to play an ever larger 
 part in foreign affairs, and the meetings of monarchs and 
 their Ministers to have increasing significance. But nothing 
 dispelled the growing unpopularity of Germany amongst 
 her neighbours. And a special grievance against her arose 
 in Russia and Austria in connection with her attempt to 
 Germanize Prussian Poland by making the teaching of 
 German compulsory in the Polish schools. Polish children 
 boldly struck against saying their religious lessons in unin- 
 telligible German ; and at one place some twenty of these 
 rebellious young patriots were flogged by order of the school 
 inspector, much to the wrath of their parents, of whom one 
 confidently asserted that Christ had spoken in the Polish, 
 not in the German, language. But the indignation was 
 more than local, and even affected political relations. The 
 Poles in Russia and Austria began to boycott German goods, 
 whilst in Russia the German arms were pulled down and 
 trampled on before the German Consulates of Warsaw and 
 Moscow. And when Germany made new tariff proposals 
 for raising her import duties, Austria and Italy and Russia 
 alike threatened retaliatory measures if the law passed, 
 causing the Triple Alliance to weaken. On October 17th 
 the Austrian Prime Minister caused a flutter by alluding to 
 the proposed tariff as endangering the alliance with Germany, 
 and Count Goluchowski had to defend the alliance against 
 attack by claiming a higher importance for political than 
 for commercial considerations. 
 
 Such was the state of the European political chessboard 
 in the first year of King Edward's reign. Nor did it need 
 exceptional gifts of prophecy to foresee the dangers to the 
 peace of the world that threatened from the dark clouds 
 visible on the horizon. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 1902 
 THE BELATED PEACE WITH THE BOERS 
 
 At the beginning of the new year it seemed less Kkely that 
 the South African War would end than that a German war 
 would be added to it. Even at home there was, especially 
 from the Liberal Party, much hostile criticism of a war 
 which was rendered none the less horrible for being desig- 
 nated as only " guerilla " warfare. Campbell-Bannerman 
 denounced the whole devastation policy as a " gigantic 
 political blunder " ; Mr. Lloyd George condemned it as 
 " an unrighteous war " ; whilst the supporters of Mr. 
 Labouchere were legion who called it " a war of conquest 
 carried on in a barbarous manner.'* 
 
 But, strong as such expressions were, the cooler view 
 that comes with lapse of time can hardly fail to coincide 
 with the earlier judgment. The custom of taking the 
 Boer women prisoners seemed to General Louis Botha a 
 thing so " outside the usual methods of warfare '' that he 
 hoped it would lead to some foreign intervention (De Wet, 
 Three Years' War, 426). The sufferings of the women and 
 children were indeed the outstanding feature of this miser- 
 able war. '* Words fail me," wrote the Rev. J. D. Kestell, 
 minister of the Dutch Reformed Church at Harrismith 
 and chaplain to De Wet and President Steyn, " when I 
 endeavour to speak of the women and of what they had 
 to endure " {Through Shot and Flame, 341). " They had 
 been ill-treated, insulted . . . they had drunk of the cup 
 to its last bitter drops " {ih, 247, 340). " The Boer women 
 were shamefully treated,*' wrote De Wet (287) ; who also 
 declared that " laagers containing no one but women and 
 
 86 
 
86 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 children and decrepit old men were fired upon with cannon 
 and rifles in order to compel them to stop " (242-3). The 
 concentration camps may have been managed with the 
 utmost humanity, but at the end of the war Botha asserted 
 that in the last year " more than 20,000 women and children 
 had died in the camps " [De Wet, 427). Latterly even the 
 mercy of the camps was denied them. " So far from the 
 truth was it," says Kestell, *' that the EngHsh had removed 
 our wives to the concentration camps from charitable 
 motives, that during the last six months they had refused to 
 receive them when, driven by want, they had sought refuge 
 in the camps *' (331). And the same fact was stated by 
 Birkenstock at Vereeniging on May 16, 1902 {De Wet, 412). 
 Such was the picture as presented to the neutral world, 
 nor did the injury to women and children complete the 
 picture. The injury to property rivalled the injury to 
 persons ; and the theory quite broke down that in modem 
 war any respect at all is paid to private property. De 
 Wet took to blowing up trains with dynamite ; not without 
 regret, he said, but with the sanction of the laws of war. 
 " It was terrible," he wrote, " to take human lives in such 
 a manner ; still, however fearful, it was not contrary to 
 the rules of civilized warfare, and we were certainly within 
 our rights in obstructing the enemy's lines of communica- 
 tion in this manner " (305). Lord Roberts in consequence 
 proclaimed that any building was to be burnt that stood 
 within ten miles of a destroyed railway ; but such burning 
 soon came to be carried out " not only within the specified 
 radius, but also everywhere throughout the State (the Trans- 
 vaal). Everywhere houses were burnt down or destroyed 
 with dynamite. And, worse still, the furniture itself and 
 the grain were burnt, and the sheep, cattle, and horses were 
 carried off. Nor was it long before horses were shot down 
 in heaps, and the sheep killed by thousands by the Kafi&rs 
 and the National Scouts (Boers who joined the English), 
 or run through by the troops with their bayonets. The 
 devastation became worse from day to day " (De Wet, 242). 
 Kestell writes of sheep " done to death in heaps of tens of 
 
THE BELATED PEACE WITH THE BOERS 37 
 
 thousands *' (340). " Large flocks of sheep were collected 
 everywhere and stabbed to death at different centres, in 
 heaps of thousands upon thousands. In the town of Vrede 
 there was a great slaughter, and, in order to make it impos- 
 sible for our people to live there, the dead sheep were carried 
 into the houses and left to rot " ; and this not only in the 
 Vrede and Harrismith districts, but everywhere throughout 
 the State (185). Large herds of young or useless horses 
 were driven into kraals or into ditches, and shot by ten, 
 fifty, or a hundred, so that the very air became tainted 
 (186). " Food was destroyed wholesale. Tens of thousands 
 of tons of wheat and maize were destroyed or rendered 
 unfit for consumption " {ih. 207) ; "all the food of the 
 women was carried away or scattered on the ground," save 
 where some humane officer or soldier secretly left a dish of 
 flour for the housewife (ih. 223) ; the mills were every- 
 where destroyed [ih. 206). Even sacred buildings did not 
 always enjoy the immunity often accorded to them in pre- 
 Christian times ; the churches of Frankfort, Ventersburg, 
 and Lindley were burnt down (ih. 241), De Wet writing 
 of the latter : " Alas, it could not any more be called a 
 town. Every house was burnt down ; not even the church 
 and parsonage were spared" (333). 
 
 Happily this kind of war was not unrelieved by instances 
 of a different sort ; as in the case of Parys, about whom 
 Kestell writes that no complaints were made of officers or 
 men who were quartered there for some time, and that the 
 families there declared that " the English treated them 
 with the greatest consideration and had also provided them 
 with all their wants " (265). But cases of this sort made 
 less impression than tales of a contrary nature. And if 
 these latter elicited bitter complaints even at home, it was 
 not astonishing that their effect was worse abroad. Especi- 
 ally was this the case in Germany, where sympathy with 
 the weaker belhgerent caused much discontent with the 
 Government's attitude of a passive neutrality, and where 
 speeches, meetings, and resolutions all over Germany mani- 
 fested a strong disposition to intervention. The horrors of 
 
88 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 war are often intensified in the telling, nor is it possible to 
 distinguish between real and invented cruelties. But one 
 may be sure that the tales which reached the neutral world 
 lost nothing on their way that was calculated to enhance 
 the indignation natural to their recital. In any case it 
 is beyond doubt that the bitterness of the German Press 
 contributed more than anything to that estrangement 
 between England and Germany that culminated in the 
 war of 1914. It was admitted by Professor Schiemann 
 that in this Press campaign rudenesses occurred which " we 
 in nowise dispute and keenly regret," though he contended 
 that worse attacks were made in the French or Russian 
 Press than in the German (iv. 318). Chancellor Biilow 
 also frequently deprecated the violent tone of the German 
 Press ; but it was of no avail, and the historical fact remains 
 that the German War of 19 14 was a direct consequence of 
 the Boer War, in so far as the ill-feeling engendered by the 
 one laid inevitably the train for the other. 
 
 Mr. Chamberlain's speech on October 25, 1901, had 
 greatly intensified the hostility of Germany, and on 
 January 8th and January loth Count Biilow felt himself 
 under the necessity of replying to the charges of German 
 cruelty in the Franco-German War of 1870. The Chancellor's 
 remarks added to the embitterment of England, though 
 our Colonial Secretary had been the first to give offence. 
 A Minister, said the Count, in defence of his policy, would 
 do well to leave foreign countries alone, or use the greatest 
 prudence in adducing foreign precedents ; otherwise there 
 was danger of his being misunderstood or of his involuntarily 
 hurting foreign feehngs, which was all the more regrettable 
 in reference to a country which had always been on good 
 and friendly terms with his own, and to whose interest as 
 well as to Germany's the untroubled continuance of such 
 terms conduced. It was quite intelligible that, in a people 
 so intimately united with its glorious Army as the German 
 people was, the general feeling had rebelled against the 
 attempt to defame the heroic character and the moral basis 
 of the national battles for unity ; but the German Army 
 
THE BELATED PEACE WITH THE BOERS 39 
 
 stood far too high and its scutcheon was too pure to admit 
 of its being affected by these warped judgments {Reden, 
 i. 242). But two days later (January loth) the Chancellor 
 had to express his deep regret at the grossly insulting 
 language in which the deputy Von Sonnenberg had referred 
 to Mr. Chamberlain and the British Army : *' If we are 
 sensitive of every attack on the honour of our own army, 
 we must also refrain from insulting foreign armies, which 
 also contain people who know how to die " {ib. i. 246). 
 The right to repel an attack on the German Army afforded 
 no pretext for establishing hostile relations between England 
 and Germany ; the only rule for foreign policy was to 
 follow the line of national interest, and this demanded the 
 cultivation of peaceable and friendly relations with England. 
 But it rested with Herr Bebel, the distinguished Socialist 
 leader, to take the line of the soundest common sense. He 
 declined to join in the outcry against Mr. Chamberlain ; 
 for he was sure that deeds of violence had been committed 
 in the Franco-German War, just as they were in every war. 
 The doctrine current in all countries that all is fair in war 
 tends in practice to be the denial of all laws of war in 
 restraint of its exercise. The saying that " War is war " 
 is the gloss for every iniquity. Count Biilow himself had 
 to defend against Bebel and others the actions of the 
 German soldiers in China. He hotly denied that a single 
 German soldier had acted there contrary to the good repute 
 of the German Army and people ; in all great collections 
 of men there were some coarse and cruel natures, but it 
 was unfair to generahze from single cases ; " the German 
 soldier was in discipline and humanity unsurpassed by any 
 other soldier of the world " (Reden, i. 154, November 23, 
 1900). Again on January 11, 1902, he affirmed, with regard 
 to excesses alleged against his countrymen in China, that 
 it was beyond doubt that everything said in the Press 
 about the cruelties of the German troops was either gross 
 exaggeration or sheer invention [ih, i. 251) ; and by this 
 argument every war may be proved to have been fought 
 as gently as a game of football, 
 
40 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 In the General Election that took place this year for the 
 House of Representatives in the United States this question 
 of cruelty in war played a large part. The Democrats laid 
 great stress on the atrocities alleged against the American 
 soldiers in the Philippines. Resort had been made to the 
 Spanish torture of the " water cure '* to obtain information, 
 the victim's mouth being kept open by a wedge, and water 
 poured down his throat. The defence was that it was in 
 reprisals for the barbarous murders of American soldiers. 
 But the case of General Jacob Smith was a damning one. 
 Being in command of Samar, he directed Major Waller, 
 who was in command of an expeditionary corps, to make 
 of Samar a howhng wilderness, and to spare neither man 
 nor woman nor any child over ten years of age. A court- 
 martial acquitted Waller on the ground of his duty to 
 superior orders ; whereupon President Roosevelt had Smith 
 tried for cruelty by a court-martial held at Manilla, and 
 on the jury finding him guilty reprimanded him and 
 placed him on the retired list. The Democrats took this 
 as vindicating their charges, but it failed to influence the 
 electorate (Ann. Reg., 1902, 426). 
 
 Mr. Chamberlain replied on January 11, 1902, to the 
 Chancellor's speech of January 8th, but not in the voice 
 of a dove : he withdrew nothing, he quahfied nothing, he 
 defended nothing ; he would refrain from giving lessons to 
 a Foreign Minister, but at the same time he would take 
 none at his hands ; he was responsible only to his own 
 Sovereign and to his own countrymen. So the sting of 
 the charge remained. But his speech was received with 
 the greatest enthusiasm both at Birmingham and in the 
 country generally. The City of London went so far as to 
 resolve on presenting the popular statesman with an address 
 in a golden casket. But the evasion of an apology was 
 not incompatible with a withdrawal. For the end of the 
 incident was an unofficial conversation between Lord 
 Lansdowne and the German Ambassador, in which his 
 Lordship pointed out that no specific charge of miUtary 
 t)^rbarity had been made against the Germans or any othe;" 
 
THE BELATED PEACE WITH THE BOERS 41 
 
 country. And as a war with England was the last thing 
 the Chancellor desired, the needless quarrel went no further. 
 
 To smooth the ruffled waters was probably the motive 
 of the Kaisers' sending King Edward a letter to invite 
 the Prince of Wales to Berlin. The Prince, reaching Berlin 
 on January 26th, was received with every sign of welcome, 
 and a better feeling was shown in the Reichstag, where 
 Baron von Richthofen, the Foreign Minister, begged the 
 Pan-Germans not to forget their kinsmanship with the 
 English, and cited the evidence from a German officer of 
 the humanity shown by the British to their Boer prisoners 
 in a camp in Ceylon. 
 
 But for the credit of our Imperialism it was sought, not 
 merely to rebut the charges of inhumanity in respect of 
 the farm-burnings and concentration camps, but to empha- 
 size the humanity of the war as its most striking feature. 
 When the King opened Parliament on January i6th, his 
 speech gave it forth to the world that his army had con- 
 ducted a tedious campaign " with a humanity, even to 
 their own detriment, in the treatment of the enemy, 
 which was deserving of the highest praise.'* On June 4th 
 Mr. Balfour, who succeeded his uncle. Lord Salisbury, as 
 Prime Minister a few days later, in supporting a vote of 
 thanks to the Army for their services, spoke of the *' excep- 
 tional humanity " shown by the troops. And at the end 
 Lord Kitchener, addressing the troops before his return 
 from South Africa, laid stress on his " special pleasure in 
 congratulating the Army on the kindly and humane spirit 
 by which all ranks had been animated during this long 
 struggle " ; nor could any misrepresentations from outside 
 prevail in the long run against the fact that " no war had 
 ever been waged in which the combatants and non-com- 
 batants on either side had shown so much consideration 
 and kindness to one another " ; which, of course, was the 
 best thing he could say. And when the German General 
 Count Waldersee came over to the Coronation in August 
 as one of the German Mission, at a dinner given in his 
 honour by Lord Roberts, the Count, by laying special stre^^ 
 
42 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 on the great humanity shown by the British troops and 
 authorities to the Boer population, did much to mitigate 
 the irritation caused by the attacks in Germany on the 
 British Army (Eckhardstein, 232). But how bad an effect 
 such attacks had on the King is shown by a conversation 
 he had with Eckhardstein on February 8, 1902. He could, 
 said the King, no longer give much weight to the long 
 letters he received from the Kaiser assuring him of his 
 friendship for England ; for the renewed abuse in the 
 German Press and the sarcastic remarks of Count Biilow 
 in the Reichstag had aroused such resentment among his 
 Ministers and in the public that there could be no more 
 question of Germany and England co-operating in any 
 conceivable matter. Yet the King, in March and April of 
 1901, had been decidedly in favour of the participation of 
 Germany in an Anglo- Japanese agreement (ib. 230). 
 
 But in the early months of the year, when the war 
 looked interminable, and Lord Kitchener's proclamation of 
 August 7, 1901, threatening life-banishment from South 
 Africa on all burghers who had not surrendered by Septem- 
 ber 15, 1901, had had only an infinitesimal effect (Kestell, 
 208-9), or "no effect whatever " (De Wet, 309), there was 
 great confusion between English parties as to the best 
 policy to pursue. Sir Alfred Milner, at Johannesburg in 
 January, expressed a very prevalent view when he said, 
 " No use to threaten, no use to wheedle ; the only thing 
 is imperturbably to squeeze." Campbell-Bannerman and 
 many Liberals^ differing from these ideas of statecraft, 
 condemned this insistence on unconditional surrender, and 
 favoured a peace by negotiation rather than one following 
 subjugation ; but as many, including Sir Henry himself, 
 regarded the independence of the Boers as irretrievably 
 forfeited, there was reason in Mr. Balfour's contention 
 that, as the Boers were fighting to retain their independence 
 and we to rob them of it, there could be no peace that fell 
 short of their subjugation. Lord Salisbury, in his reply of 
 March 11, 1900, to the letter of the Boer Presidents of 
 March 9, 1900, had insisted on the lo^s of their independence 
 
THE BELATED PEACE WITH THE BOERS 43 
 
 as a punishment for their having begun the war, ignoring 
 the admitted previous " considerable preparations for war '* 
 on our side ; and this remained not only the Government's 
 view, but that of the Liberal Imperialists (Lord Rosebery, 
 Sir E. Grey, Mr. Asquith, and others), between whom and the 
 Unionist Government Mr. Chamberlain fairly claimed that 
 the difference had become imperceptible. Happily there 
 was a Liberal remnant, which from the traditional sym- 
 pathy of Liberals with a people fighting for their freedom 
 was opposed to carrying on the war to extremities, and 
 held that the withdrawal of the banishment proclamation 
 of August 7, 1 90 1, might dispose the enemy to overtures 
 of peace. But opinions of this sort counted for nothing, 
 and were defeated in Parliament by immense majorities. 
 
 Thus the rift between the two wings of the Liberal 
 Party grew ever wider, till it developed into a breach which 
 has never since been really healed. Campbell-Bannerman, 
 in reply to Lord Rosebery 's denunciation of an independent 
 Irish Parliament, denied that the Liberals had ever demanded 
 or contemplated such a thing ; whereupon Lord Rosebery, 
 on February 21st, declared in The Times that with such 
 discordant views about Ireland, as well as about the war 
 and its methods, the moment of " definite separation *' had 
 come. But a few days later (February 27th) his followers 
 refused to sever themselves from the main Liberal Party, 
 and on March 3rd the Liberal Imperial League of 1901 
 was dissolved, and its place taken by the Liberal League, 
 with Rosebery as its president. Mr. Asquith's letter on 
 March 3rd to his East Fife constituents revealed the extent 
 of the lapse from the Liberal faith. Gladstone's Irish 
 pohcy, he said, had failed because its aim of reconciling 
 Ireland to England had lacked the sanction and sympathy 
 of British opinion. To recognize such a fact was not 
 apostasy, but common sense ; therefore he was against the 
 bringing in of a Home Rule Bill, should the Liberal Party 
 be returned to power. As if the duty of statesmanship was 
 to follow, not to lead, public opinion in the way it should 
 go ; and as if reform of any sort might not have to wait 
 
44 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 for ever if the sanction of public opinion were a condition 
 precedent ! 
 
 Peace in Africa seemed past praying for, when suddenly 
 help came from an unexpected quarter. In the debate on 
 the Address, Lord Rosebery on January i6th received a 
 negative answer to his question whether overtures for peace 
 had not lately been received from the exiled Boer Govern- 
 ment, and suggested that the recent visit of the Dutch 
 Premier, Baron de Kuyper, had been for some other object 
 than merely to see the pictures by the old masters. Lord 
 Rosebery's surmise was not far wrong. On January 25th 
 Lord Lansdowne did receive from the Dutch Ambassador 
 in London, Baron Gericke, the offer of the good offices of 
 the Queen of the Netherlands to facihtate the opening of 
 negotiations, and the proposal of safe-conducts to be granted 
 to the Boer delegates to go to South Africa and back with 
 full powers to conclude a treaty of peace. Lord Lansdowne's 
 reply on January 29th was a refusal to accept the inter- 
 vention of any foreign Power, and an intimation that peace 
 could only be made in Africa by direct negotiations between 
 Lord Kitchener and the Boer leaders. Lord Salisbury on 
 February 5th declared his inability to imagine the purpose 
 of the Dutch Government, and suggested that they had 
 been prompted to this step by the pro-Boers in England 
 (Ann. Reg., 1902, 51). Though this did not promise well 
 for a settlement, the correspondence, published in a Blue 
 Book on February 4th, and sent to the Boer Generals in 
 the field by Lord Kitchener on March 4th, was the starting- 
 point of the difficult peace that was subsequently made. 
 
 But not before the Boers had won a great success at 
 Tweebosch on March 7th, when a force of 1,200 men, under 
 Lord Methuen, and five guns had been captured, and Lord 
 Methuen himself wounded and taken prisoner. There 
 were about 200 British casualties. General Delarey showed 
 Lord Methuen every attention, and sent him to Klerksdorp 
 for treatment by an Enghsh physician, but it appears that 
 Lord Methuen was set at liberty on the way, to the annoy- 
 ance of some of the Boers, who thought he should have 
 
THE BELATED PEACE WITH THE BOERS 45 
 
 been kept as a prisoner (Kestell, 268-9). When the tele- 
 gram announcing this disaster was read in the House, the 
 cheers and laughter of some Irish Nationalists roused such 
 indignation that on March 13th it was announced that the 
 King had renounced his intention of visiting Ireland in the 
 course of the year, a whole nation being thus punished for 
 the misdemeanour of a few. 
 
 A contemporary writer asserted that " the most salient 
 characteristic of the foreign policy of Germany in the year 
 1902 was its antagonism to England " (Ann. Reg., 1902, 
 298) ; but he immediately went on to say that this antag- 
 onism came chiefly from the Pan-Germans, a party which, 
 though very noisy and active, had '* few followers in the 
 Prussian and German ParHaments," and which was strongly 
 opposed by German Liberals and by the rapidly growing 
 party of the Social Democrats. ** Such a party could not 
 have much influence with the Government." Count Biilow, 
 the Chancellor, never ceased to dissociate himself from 
 the Pan-Germans, and to insist on the necessity for friendly 
 relations with England. 
 
 This was most fortunate ; for China and the Far East 
 afforded abundant chances for a war between the six Powers 
 that had been exacting punishment from China for the 
 Boxer rising and the murder of Europeans, including that 
 of the German Ambassador, Von Ketteler, whose assassin 
 had been executed at Peking on the last day of 1900. The 
 real preoccupation of the Powers was competition for the 
 trade of China, and the peaceable adjustment of this com- 
 petition demanded a spirit of tact and compromise. This 
 was shown in the treaty of October 16, 1900, between 
 England and Germany, which stipulated for the freedom of 
 trade for all nations in China ; for the abstention of both 
 countries from all territorial acquisitions ; and for the 
 maintenance of the territorial status quo. The two Powers 
 were to agree together for the protection of their own terri- 
 tory in the event of any third Power trying to acquire 
 territory, and the other Powers were to be invited to con- 
 form to the same principles. Any ideas of Germany's 
 
46 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 consenting to the dismemberment or breaking up of China 
 were emphatically disclaimed by the Chancellor on Novem- 
 ber 19, 1900 (Reden, i. 132). The treaty was a hint of 
 ** hands off " to Russia ; notwithstanding which in 1901 
 China was on the point of agreeing to let Russia occupy 
 Manchuria for three years, involving a monopoly over the 
 railways, mines, and commerce of Manchuria. Protests 
 from England and Japan in January 1902, and from the 
 United States in February, put an end to this agreement, 
 though Russian control of Manchuria continued (Ann. Reg., 
 1902, 382). As a further security against Russia, England 
 and Japan made a treaty on January 30, 1902, to safe- 
 guard their respective interests in China and Korea against 
 foreign threats. Each Power disclaimed all aggressive 
 tendencies, and agreed to remain neutral in case of either 
 being involved in war, but to help its ally against a com- 
 bination of enemies. Japan, it was felt, could defend herself 
 against any one Power, but might need assistance against 
 more. Germany's view about this treaty, as expressed by 
 the Chancellor on March 3, 1902, was that it did not touch 
 Germany nor the agreement of October 16, 1900. Germany's 
 interests in China were exclusively commercial ; she had 
 no territorial aims either in China or Korea (Reden, i. 297). 
 All that Germany wanted was equal conditions of trade in 
 the Far East for all nations, without privileges for any. 
 
 This Anglo- Japanese Treaty of January 30, 1902, had 
 been in course of negotiation since August 4, 1901, and 
 had taken long in the making, the strange thing being 
 that concurrently with negotiations between England and 
 Japan the Japanese Government was engaged since 
 September 1901 in similar negotiations with Russia. There 
 was therefore no small resentment in Russia when the 
 Anglo- Japanese Treaty was published on February nth in 
 London and on February 12th in Tokio : as Count Hayashi 
 says, Russia's " disHke of Japan deepened more and more " 
 (Secret Memoirs, 199). And another fact is noteworthy : 
 that it was for long discussed between Count Hayashi, 
 Japan's amba^s^dor in London, and Lord Lansdowne, our 
 
THE BELATED PEACE WITH THE BOERS 47 
 
 Foreign Minister, whether Germany should be invited to 
 join the alHance either before or after the treaty was effected. 
 After much shilly-shallying, it was decided that the German 
 Ambassadors in London and Tokio should be notified of 
 the treaty on February 3rd, but on the evening of 
 February 2nd an attempt was unfortunately made to post- 
 pone the notification, in consequence of " some wish 
 expressed by King Edward " (ib. 190). It seems likely 
 that the bitter feelings aroused by the oratorical combat 
 between Count Biilow and Mr. Chamberlain put an end 
 to all thought of inviting Germany to join our alliance 
 with Japan, and there is evidence that Germany regarded 
 herself as deliberately excluded by the two Governments 
 from participating in the treaty, and nursed much dis- 
 pleasure thereat {ib. 202). 
 
 In any case Count Biilow, by his attitude of indifference, 
 on March 3rd did what he could to soothe the nerves of 
 European diplomacy, as also by his persistent explanation 
 of the real and proper meaning of that much-dreaded word 
 Weltpolitik. This word, he declared, did not mean that 
 Germany was to put her finger into every pie, or to play 
 the part of Don Quixote, to put her lance in rest, and run 
 amuck, wherever she saw an English windmill ; it only 
 meant that, as her commerce had been driven to expand 
 itself over the whole world, it behoved her to recognize 
 that German poHcy was no longer hmited to the home and 
 the parish but was of world extension, and that it was 
 incumbent on her to protect and promote those wider 
 interests within the limits of the reasonable and the possible 
 (Reden, i. 167, 300). Germany's Weltpolitik was entirely 
 defensive, for the security of her transmarine trade ; and 
 on that account England had not the same reason for 
 jealousy of her maritime development that she had for- 
 merly in the case of Spain, France, Holland, or Russia, 
 all of whom had aspired to the maritime supremacy of 
 the world (Deutsche Politik, 28-9). On December 6, 1897, 
 he had summed up Germany's justification for her new 
 and greater fleet in a phrase that had been used by Pascal 
 
48 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 (Hammann's Vorgeschichte des Weltkrieges, 70), and that 
 soon became proverbial : "We wish to put no one in the 
 shade, but we also demand our place in the sun " (Reden, 
 i. 8). Again, on March 15, 1901, it was in the sense that 
 the development of Germany's overseas interests in East 
 Asia was a question of life or death to Germany that she 
 claimed her " place in the sun," and desired not to be 
 pushed into the shade (ib. i. 210). The Kaiser followed 
 his Chancellor in speaking of this " place in the sun " on 
 June 19, 1901 (Kaiserreden, 349). The popular idea that 
 a place in the sun meant the only place in the sun, or in 
 other words the dominion of the whole world, arose from 
 a misunderstanding of the German words Weltpolitik and 
 Weltmacht, neither of which had the meaning of Weltherr- 
 schaft which was usually appHed to them in England, the 
 meaning of world-supremacy or universal dominion. 
 
 The moderate tone of the German Chancellor about 
 China had by March caused a brightening of the sky, which 
 was increased on March 24th by the news of the opening 
 of negotiations for peace in South Africa. Despite the 
 ovation with which the Boer Generals had been acclaimed 
 in Berhn on October 16, 1901, the refusal of the Kaiser to 
 receive them except in the presence of the British Ambas- 
 sador, coupled with the reception of the Boer delegates by 
 President Roosevelt on March 5, 1902, and his refusal of 
 any American intervention, rendered the Boer cause hope- 
 less. And on our side, too, peace had come to be recognized 
 as desirable. The concentration camps alone were costing 
 the country £180,000 a month, and the music-halls could 
 no longer sustain the original war-fever. The war and 
 the Chinese expedition had cost the country in the last 
 three years more than 165 miUions. On the same day that 
 news of a forthcoming peace reached England (March 24th) 
 Mr. Balfour introduced his Education Bill, which till its 
 tardy passing at the end of the year diverted to the most 
 controversial of all domestic subjects the rage of party 
 spirit that had been evoked by the war. And on March 26th 
 died Cecil Rhodes, the leading spirit of the Imperialist 
 
THE BELATED PEACE WITH THE BOERS 49 
 
 policy which had begun with the Jameson raid in 1896 
 and was to end shortly after his death with the crushing 
 of the ill-fated Repubhcs that had dared to oppose him. 
 His contribution to the philosophy of Imperiahsm was 
 summed up in the phrase " Territory is everything." 
 
 The peace was long in the making, the sacrifice of their 
 national independence being the one thing the Boers were 
 reluctant to yield and the one thing their conquerors 
 demanded. In vain the Boers tried for a compromise ; they 
 would submit to an English protectorate ; to a surrender 
 of the goldfields and of Swaziland ; they would lay no 
 claim to an independent foreign policy. But the meeting 
 that began at Vereeniging on May 15th only revealed the 
 hopelessness of continuing the struggle. All hope of foreign 
 intervention had vanished, and the expectation, maintained 
 to the last, of a general rising in Cape Colony had been 
 dispelled by a recent visit of General Smuts. General De 
 Wet, in his wish to continue the war, was in a hopeless 
 minority. Between May 19th and May 28th there were 
 long discussions between the Boer leaders on the one side 
 and Lords Milner and Kitchener on the other, of which 
 there is a full report in De Wet's book (436-71), but which 
 did not perceptibly affect the result. An immense territory 
 was added to the British Empire, so far fulfilling the pre- 
 diction expressed by Mr. Chamberlain at Birmingham on 
 May i6th that the future of the world lay with great 
 empires, not with small states : a reading of history which 
 derived little justification from the experience of the past. 
 
 Thus came the Boer War to a tardy end : a war for which 
 all the responsibihty did not rest with the British Govern- 
 ment. For, as Vice-President Burger said on May 30, 
 1902, " We began this war strong in the faith of God, 
 but there were also one or two other things to rely on. We 
 had considerable confidence in our own weapons ; we under- 
 estimated the enemy ; the fighting spirit had seized upon 
 our people ; and the thought of victory had banished that 
 of the possibiUty of defeat " {De Wet, 500). And that is 
 the history of the origin of most wars. 
 
 4 
 
50 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 News of the signature of peace reached England on 
 June 1st and was a good beginning of the summer. The 
 King's part in it was generally recognized ; as by Count 
 Reventlow, who speaks of the speedy (!) conclusion of 
 peace as having been actively striven for by him from his 
 accession (203), or by Professor Schiemann, who wrote on 
 June 4th : "No doubt but that a great service in the final 
 agreement of peace belongs to King Edward VII. He had 
 done more for it than any other Enghshman, and the 
 obstacles he had to overcome were certainly not slight " 
 (ii. 224). The smoothness and ease with which good rela- 
 tions were established with the new colonies proved how 
 needless had been the prolongation of the struggle. Lord 
 Kitchener received a grant of £50,000 for his exer- 
 tions, and Lord Salisbury resigned the fatigues of the 
 Premiership on June nth. The King's serious illness com- 
 pelled the postponement of his coronation till August 9th, 
 when it was celebrated with more than mediaeval magnifi- 
 cence. On August 17th he and the Queen received the 
 Boer Generals, Botha, Delarey, and De Wet, on the Victoria 
 and Albert yacht. They had been met at Southampton 
 by Lord Kitchener and by him been presented to Lord 
 Roberts and Mr. Chamberlain on August i6th ; but, though 
 they declined to witness the naval review, nothing could 
 exceed the enthusiasm with which the London crowds 
 endeavoured to reconcile them to the bitterness of 
 defeat. 
 
 But the end did not come with these marks of recon- 
 ciliation. After a short visit to the Continent and inter- 
 views with Kruger and Steyn, the Generals reopened with 
 Mr. Chamberlain the terms of the treaty. It had been 
 agreed to pay 3 millions for the restoration of the destroyed 
 farms, etc., but they claimed that this was inadequate. 
 They wanted compensation for the losses that had been 
 incurred by the use, removal, burning or destruction of all 
 the private property of the inhabitants of the late Repub- 
 lics (August 23rd). Some 30,000 of their houses had been 
 burnt or destroyed, their orchards had been cut down, and 
 
THE BELATED PEACE WITH THE BOERS 51 
 
 all their farm equipments had been removed or destroyed 
 (Ann. Reg., 1902, 207). They also pleaded for an amnesty 
 for the Cape and Natal rebels who had fought on their side, 
 and regretted that such an amnesty had not been granted 
 at the Coronation. Chamberlain replied that history 
 recorded no instance of such generosity by a conqueror to 
 the conquered as had been shown by England, and refused 
 to reopen the question. And although at a Conference at 
 the Foreign Office on September 5th between himself. Lord 
 Kitchener, and the Generals, Mr. Chamberlain manifested 
 the same conciliatory spirit that marked his correspondence 
 with them, they proceeded to tour the Continent for an 
 appeal for more money. Finally, Parliament on Novem- 
 ber 8th voted, in addition to the 3 millions of free grants, 
 3 millions as a supplementary loan and 2 millions to indivi- 
 duals for their losses. Victorious ImperiaHsm did not fail 
 in generosity ; and, in the interests of a wider pacification 
 than could be obtained by money, Mr. Chamberlain himself 
 decided to go to South Africa. He reached Durban on 
 December 26th, and in a series of conciliatory speeches 
 during the winter succeeded better than might have been 
 anticipated in reconcihng the racial feud between EngHsh 
 and Dutch, and in getting them to work together for their 
 common welfare. The hopes of a greater activity in the 
 goldmines as a sequel or consequence of the war were 
 doomed to disappointment, and the prices of mining shares 
 were lower at the end of the year than they had been at 
 the beginning. But how little it was thought that the end 
 of the Boer War was to herald in a reign of peace is shown 
 by the fact that our naval estimates for this year were a 
 milHon more than in the previous year. Our Navy, which 
 had cost only 14 milHons in 1893, now cost 33 milHons ; 
 we enjoyed the security afforded by a nearly four-Power 
 standard ; for Germany, France, Russia, and Italy put 
 together only spent on their collective Navies four milHons 
 more than we did. Yet a spirit of trembling apprehension 
 was sedulously cultivated. 
 
 The growing friction with Germany was momentarily 
 
52 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 lessened by the visit of the Prince of Wales to Berlin for the 
 Kaiser's forty-third birthday on January 27th. The Prince 
 was received with every honour, and the occasion was 
 thought in Germany to augur well for the world's peace. 
 It proved, wrote Professor Schiemann, that the baiting of 
 Germany by a certain journalistic clique might consider 
 itself wrecked ; there was an end of the attempts to make 
 a breach between England and Germany (ii. 40-1). But 
 this was a hope of very short duration. For a violent anti- 
 German propaganda soon again became the feature of a 
 large section of the EngHsh and foreign Press. And in the 
 genesis of the subsequent war this Press campaign well 
 deserved the notice which the Professor gave to it. On 
 June 18, 1902, he again complained of an organized inter- 
 national journalistic cUque or consortium which, with its 
 centre in London, and with ramifications over the Continent, 
 busied itself with throwing the worst light it could on 
 everything that was said or done in Germany. Through 
 special correspondents in the different capitals of the world 
 it is possible to foist any international pohcy on pubUc 
 opinion, and in the Professor's opinion this was deliberately 
 done. At the same time, in this fierce Press-war that was 
 the prelude to the real one it was a case where reciprocity 
 ruled, and it was doubtless natural that a German writer 
 had a keener eye for EngUsh diatribes against Germany 
 than for those of the German Press against ourselves. But 
 it must not be supposed for that reason that the German 
 Press took no part in the quarrel. 
 
 The leading part in this Press crusade was played by 
 The Times, which had for its special correspondent at 
 BerHn a Mr. Saunders. This gentleman's animosity against 
 Germany was so unconcealed that in June of this year 
 the German Foreign Minister, Baron Richthofen, remon- 
 strated with him before a number of hearers. '* No one," 
 said the Minister, " has contributed more to the poisoning 
 of pubHc opinion in England against Germany then your- 
 self. I have repeatedly told the Ambassador that with 
 the influence of The Times in England, and with the repe- 
 
THE BELATED PEACE WITH THE BOERS 53 
 
 tition of its observations in Germany, your tendentious, 
 poisonous reports must be regarded as a positive mischief 
 for both countries " {ib. ii. 240, iii. 103, iv. 314). But 
 neither was Mr. Saunders recalled nor was the agitation 
 checked, for on June 8, 1908, Baron Greindl, the Belgian 
 Minister at BerUn, wrote to M. Davignon, Belgian Foreign 
 Minister, in reference to the inflammatory writing of our 
 Press : " It is not only the cheap papers which stoop to 
 play this part ; The Times has carried on for many years 
 a campaign of slander and falsehood. Its Berlin corre- 
 spondent . . . stirs up the hatred of the Enghsh against 
 the Germans by attributing to the Imperial Government 
 ambitious plans of which the absurdity is evident, and by 
 accusing it of shady intrigues of which it has never dreamt " 
 (Belgian Diplomatic Documents, No. 32). 
 
 Next in importance to The Times in this anti-German 
 campaign came the Fortnightly Review, where a supposed 
 EngKshman wrote under the pseudonym of Ignotus. Pro- 
 fessor Schiemann wavers as to the personality of Ignotus, 
 sometimes identifying him with a Russian writer named 
 Wessehtsky (ii. 240), sometimes with a Frenchman named 
 Neton, once a secretary of M. Delcasse's, who, under the 
 title of Ignotus, promoted Delcassian ideas in the Figaro 
 (ib. V. 215, viii. 201). The pseudonym of Calchas con- 
 cealed the authority of another anti-German writer in the 
 Fortnightly, whom rightly or not the Professor identified 
 with Mr. Garvin, editor of the Observer (viii. 127) ; and 
 the same spirit, if not the same pen, inspired the articles 
 which appeared in the National Review above the signature 
 of Quirinus and of Ultor. A Russian named Tatitschef, an 
 ex-diplomat, as London correspondent of the Novya Vremya, 
 is said to have written as Argus, in the interests of an Anglo- 
 French-Russian league against Germany. As the Russian 
 paper was run by a French syndicate (ein franzosisches 
 Aktien-unternehmen) , it was a ready vehicle for French 
 propaganda (ib. ii. 114). So far, indeed, was this campaign 
 carried, that the Professor on October 3rd complained of it 
 as working directly for a future war between England and 
 
64 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 Germany {ib. ii. 324), nor was it easily explicable on any 
 other hypothesis. The Kaiser's visit to Sandringham was 
 approaching, and there was great dread of any sort of 
 understanding with Germany. ** It is unthinkable," wrote 
 the National Review, " that there can be any risk of patri- 
 otic British statesmen so far forgetting their duties as 
 to contemplate a rapprochement with Germany. . . . We 
 earnestly hope that the leading English newspapers . . . 
 will protest before it is too late against the arrangements 
 by which we are threatened." In this way it was sought 
 to force opinion into a definite groove, and anti-Germanism 
 was made a test of patriotism. This unrelenting attitude 
 had begun in the first year of the new reign in 1901 {ib. iv. 
 123), and continued during the whole of it ; nor was it to 
 any purpose that the German National Zeitung on Novem- 
 ber I2th gave the wise advice to the Press of both countries 
 to keep quiet and say nothing, in the interests of harmony 
 (ib. ii. 372). About the end of the year The Times wel- 
 comed a poem from Rudyard Kipling, of which Schiemann 
 said that, with poet Austin's effusions fresh in his memory, 
 he remembered nothing in English political poetry worse in 
 form than this effusion of poet Kipling. But he was not 
 astonished at The Times opening its columns to sentiments 
 so thoroughly in accordance with its own (ib. ii. 443, 
 December 13th). 
 
 With regard to our Navy, it was rightly felt that the 
 time had come when the colonial dependencies of the 
 Empire, whose conceivable naval defence necessitated a 
 large part of our vast expenditure, should help to ease 
 their mother country of some fraction of the financial 
 burden. With this question the Imperial Council with the 
 Colonial Premiers was mainly occupied in meetings that 
 lasted from June 30th to August nth. But not even in 
 return for a suggested share in the Councils of the Empire 
 were the Premiers disposed to promise any definite con- 
 tribution to Imperial defence, though Australia and New 
 Zealand, by agreeing to raise their previously insignificant 
 contributions, and Natal and Newfoundland by agreeing to 
 
THE BELATED PEACE WITH THE BOERS 55 
 
 contribute a few thousands, practically doubled the amount 
 hitherto paid by the Colonies. 
 
 Meantime the Triple Alliance, of which the foundation 
 had been laid in 1879 by Prince Bismarck and Count 
 Andrassy, came up for renewal, and there was much hope 
 among Germany's enemies that the treaty might not be 
 renewed. The German Chancellor insisted that both in 
 design and in result the alliance was pacific and not aggres- 
 sive ; that it laid so little burden on its members as to 
 bind none of the three to any specific amount of military 
 force, and left each member so unfettered in its dealings 
 with other Powers as to remain unaffected by any agree- 
 ments that Italy might make separately with France about 
 the Mediterranean (January 8, 1902. Reden, i. 243). The 
 Chancellor had some long interviews in the spring with 
 Signor Prinetti, the Italian Foreign Minister, at Venice ; 
 the German new protective tariff vexed both Italy and 
 Austria ; but the treaty was renewed at Berlin on June 28th 
 for twelve years. The Chancellor regarded it no longer as 
 *' an absolute necessity,*' but as an additional guarantee of 
 European peace. 
 
 The competition of the Powers for the Czar's favour 
 continued to be brisk, though Russia was in her normal 
 condition of revolutionary rumblings. Lest French adoration 
 for Russia should seem to be cooling. President Loubet visited 
 St. Petersburg on May 23rd, and it pleased English observers 
 to note that the " cordiality " of his reception was " in 
 strong contrast to the frigidity of the comments of the 
 Russian Press on the visit of the Emperor William " (Ann. 
 Reg., 1902, 323). 
 
 On July 9th King Victor Emmanuel started for St. 
 Petersburg on the first visit ever paid by an Italian 
 Sovereign to a Czar of Russia, and from August 27th to 
 31st he was the guest of the Kaiser in Germany. And in 
 the meantime, on August 6th, the Kaiser and the Czar 
 had met at Reval : a return visit for the reception of the 
 Czar by the Kaiser off Danzig in 1901 and ** the merry 
 hours " there spent together [Letter 24, January 3, 1902). 
 
68 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 On September 2nd the Kaiser expressed to the Czar his 
 gratitude for the visit : for the kindness shown to him by 
 his cousin, for their long hours of friendly intercourse, for 
 the fine military display, for the target practice of the 
 Russian Fleet ; above all for the permission to be shown 
 the secrets of the Russian School of Naval Gunnery : a 
 mark of confidence reciprocated by the secret plans of his 
 newest German ships being handed over to the Czar and 
 his naval authorities. For both of them had the same 
 interest in developing their Navies, which were really to 
 be looked on as one great organization belonging to one 
 great continent, for the peace of the world. So long as 
 the two leading Powers of the Continent could bring their 
 allies into line — that is, five Powers in all — and decide that 
 peace must be kept, the world must remain at peace and 
 enjoy its blessings. And this was best done by the annual 
 meetings of the two leaders of the two alliances for an 
 exchange of views. This was the more necessary as the 
 restlessness of Japan indicated the danger of that Yellow 
 Peril he had depicted years ago and been laughed at for 
 doing so by most people {Letter 26, September 2, 1902). 
 
 Evidently at that time the Kaiser's idea was the isola- 
 tion of England against a combination of Germany, Austria, 
 Italy, France, and Russia, corresponding to our idea of a 
 similar isolation of Germany. The Powers of Europe are 
 like flies sporting in a sunbeam, uniting or separating from 
 moment to moment, without any discernible law foi their 
 quickly changing attachments or repulsions. But there 
 can have been no lack of subjects for political discussions 
 at Reval, and the more Russia and Germany drew together, 
 the more did France cool towards Russia and draw towards 
 England. By her convention of April 8th with China, 
 Russia had agreed to restore Manchuria to China, but 
 under conditions that left Russia in real occupation and 
 enabled her to place German and British traders at a dis- 
 advantage. And in Persia, too, there was the same scramble 
 for commerce and influence, Russia arranging a new com- 
 n^ercial treaty with Persia to her own advantage. The 
 
THE BELATED PEACE WITH THE BOERS 57 
 
 visit of the Shah of Persia to Paris and London, and his 
 reception by King Edward at Portsmouth, may probably 
 be connected with this competition for trade and conces- 
 sions that was rampant over the world. The Russian 
 Press was preaching that in Afghanistan the time had come 
 for setting aside the old Anglo-Russian agreement which 
 precluded Russia from political intercourse with that 
 country ; Russia desired as full a political and commercial 
 intercourse as was enjoyed by England. But perhaps the 
 chief subjects of conversation between the Kaiser and the 
 Czar was Germany's growing trouble with Prussian Poland. 
 Poland was to Germany somewhat as Ireland was to 
 England : a reluctant member of the Empire. It was sought 
 to Germanize the province by settling Germans there in 
 preponderant numbers, and by forbidding the use of the 
 Polish language in the schools or at public meetings. On 
 June 5th the Kaiser had made a speech at Marienburg 
 which had given great offence, and which, as so often 
 happened, his Chancellor had to explain. " Polish aggres- 
 siveness was resolved to encroach on Germanism," so that 
 he must summon his people to preserve its national posses- 
 sions. The speech, said the Chancellor two days later, 
 was quite in order, being merely the expression of the 
 monarch's duty to preserve the unity of the Prussian 
 monarchy {Reden, i. 339). There was, he said an agitation 
 for a Greater Poland ; for the restoration of an independent 
 Poland ; and an opposition to the German speech and 
 nationality. The Germans had no thought of expelling 
 their Polish fellow-citizens from their homes, nor of wishing 
 to rob them of their speech or religion ; their only hope 
 was to make them into good and loyal Prussians and Ger- 
 mans, in return for the benefits conferred on them for a 
 century and a half ; but they could not stand the boy- 
 cotting of German merchants and workmen in the small 
 German towns {ih. i. 348). But neither these smooth 
 words nor the Imperial conversations made much difference ; 
 for when the Kaiser went to Posen in September to unveil 
 a monument to his mother the Poles absented themselves 
 
58 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 from the festivities, and the Kaiser in vain made a con- 
 ciliatory speech, promising non-interference with their 
 religion. 
 
 Towards England and her Royal Family the Kaiser, it 
 was said, " took every opportunity of showing friendliness " 
 (Ann. Reg., 1902, 302). In September Lord Roberts and 
 other English officers, and Mr. Brodrick, our Secretary for 
 War, were invited to attend the German military manoeuvres ; 
 and it has been said that it was to a really eloquent address 
 by the Kaiser that the Duke of Cambridge and the 
 British, American, and Austrian Ambassadors were invited 
 to listen at Hamburg in August on the occasion of the 
 unveiling of a monument to the Kaiser's mother. But the 
 not infrequent indiscreet remarks in the Kaiser's speeches 
 tended to make them a terror to Europe. His relations 
 with King Edward improved. On October 13th the King, 
 at luncheon with Baron Eckhardstein, ** spoke throughout 
 with great cordiality of the Kaiser " (Eckhardstein, 238). 
 In November the Kaiser came over to pay a birthday 
 visit to his uncle at Sandringham. He arrived on the 8th, 
 but Eckhardstein, who went with the Embassy Staff to 
 meet him at Port Victoria, gives a sorry story of his recep- 
 tion. At breakfast on the Hohenzollern " the atmosphere 
 was one of extreme depression, as the Kaiser was very 
 hard hit by the icy, indeed positively unfriendly, reception 
 given him in the English Press." The most that could be 
 said of the visit was that it " went off with correctitude." 
 And ''as be again disappeared on board the yacht, King 
 Edward was heard to breathe, ' Thank God, he's gone ' " 
 (ih. 245). 
 
 This unfortunate antipathy between uncle and nephew 
 clearly did not make for goodwill between their subjects. 
 Lord Suffield, in his Memories, published in 1913, declares 
 that the Kaiser was and always had been " very fond of 
 England and the English, in spite of all that people might 
 say to the contrary " ; that he had " always worked for peace 
 with England, but that, in spite of all his really earnest 
 endeavours and his sincere love of this country, there had 
 
THE BELATED PEACE WITH THE BOERS 59 
 
 always been friction between the two Courts." Lord 
 Suffield could only account for this friction by attributing 
 it to the jealousy so habitual between Courts. It was not 
 the Emperor's fault, he says, for he had not only been 
 greatly attached to Queen Victoria, but regarded her with 
 the greatest respect and veneration ; she, in fact, died 
 literally in his arms when she passed away at Osborne 
 (268). And, if Lord Esher is right, not only that King 
 Edward " liked Germany and the German people," but 
 that mutual respect and real admiration attached uncle 
 and nephew to one another {Influence of King Edward, 
 56), such testimony can hardly be reconciled with very 
 opposite statements save by supposing that their relations 
 worsened with time. And the Kaiser's letters to the Czar 
 show that for England as a Power the Kaiser had the 
 greatest jealousy : a jealousy which was evidently fully 
 shared by the Czar. In any case the fact that fate was 
 driving the subjects of the Kaiser and the King to a 
 scarcely avoidable war disposes for all time of the traditional 
 monarchical fiction that Courts or blood-relationships of 
 monarchs act as preservatives of the peace of the world. 
 
 But in 1902 the future, of course, was hidden from men's 
 eyes. Conciliation and moderation were in the air. In 
 May the Kaiser, in proof of his confidence in the fidelity 
 and loyalty of Alsace-Lorraine to the Empire, and as " a 
 special proof of his favour," did away with the dictator- 
 ship paragraphs of the Constitution of 1879, which con- 
 ferred despotic powers on the Governor of those provinces 
 in case of need, so completely had all fear of separation 
 by force vanished from the German mind. When a 
 demonstration in favour of the revanche occurred at Stras- 
 burg, " on this and on other similar occasions the German 
 Government showed a spirit of forbearance and courtesy 
 towards France " [Ann. Reg., 1902, 306). And great 
 satisfaction was felt in Germany at the help liberally given 
 by the British authorities to the German expedition in 
 May to the Niger Delta for the purpose of establishing a 
 coaling station and trade factories with the Hinterland of 
 
00 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 the Cameroons. Jealousy of German colonization had 
 hardly begun. But jealousy of German commerce was 
 developing rapidly, especially with reference to the con- 
 templated railway to Bagdad, for which Germany had got 
 a concession from the Sultan of Turkey in 1899. Russia, 
 which had tried by a secret agreement with China to obtain 
 exclusive commercial interests in Manchuria, had no wish 
 to have Germany pushing her way into Asia ; nor was 
 England desirous to submit to a partnership with her in 
 the spoils of Mesopotamia nor as a neighbour in the Persian 
 Gulf. It is probable that at Reval and at Sandringham 
 the Kaiser attempted some accommodation with his cousin 
 and with his uncle in respect of the Bagdad railway, which 
 he told the Czar, on January 3, 1902, that he intended 
 German capital to build. 
 
 The Sandringham visit greatly offended the strong 
 anti-German feehng in England which the Boer War had 
 provoked, especially when it was followed the next month 
 by joint action with Germany and Italy against Venezuela. 
 All three countries had pecuniary claims against Venezuela 
 for debts and injuries, and when her ports were blockaded 
 and three of her gunboats were seized by British and 
 German cruisers there was much excitement in the United 
 States and great mistrust of Germany's assurances that 
 such punitive measures would not end in a seizure of terri- 
 tory and utter disregard of the Monroe doctrine. Kipling 
 expressed the anger felt with Mr. Balfour's Government 
 for co-operating with Germany in a poem to which Count 
 Billow referred slightingly in the Reichstag, and which, 
 together with other similar outbursts in the English Press, 
 he attributed rightly to the bitterness caused in England 
 by the Continental Press during the Boer War (Reden, i. 400). 
 
 " Who can forget," wrote Professor Schiemann, ** the 
 outbursts of rage which the Venezuelan affair let loose 
 against us — and against the Balfour Ministry ? It was 
 as though treason against the country had been com- 
 mitted " (iv. 319). The Venezuelan episode afforded an 
 opportunity to some journaUsts for seeking to sow dissen- 
 
THE BELATED PEACE WITH THE BOERS 61 
 
 sions between Germany and her two colleagues in the affair, 
 and the most groundless rumours were propagated about 
 Germany's intentions to annex some American republic ; 
 the New York Herald professed good authority for the 
 statement that after Venezuela Germany intended to attack 
 Columbia and finally Brazil {ih. i. 435). Nothing seemed 
 impossible to the credulity of the world where Germany 
 was concerned. 
 
 Yet France, too, needed to be watched in Siam. In 
 1896 we had made a convention with France which 
 guaranteed the independence of Siam within the valley of 
 the Menan ; east of that district was to be under French 
 influence, west of it under British. The convention was 
 differently interpreted. Both Lord Salisbury and Lord 
 Dufferin held that it was meant to secure the independence 
 of the whole of Siam, and that therefore the French had 
 no right to gain territory nor to fortify posts on the east ; 
 but the French held that the independence only applied to 
 the Menan Valley. The French Colonial party was now 
 pressmg for the annexation of the whole of Siam, or for 
 a French protectorate, and their wishes were to some extent 
 met by a convention which M. Delcasse succeeded in making 
 with Siam on October 7th, very much to the advantage 
 of France and with great cessions of territory from Siam. 
 France's declaration that she intended no permanent settle- 
 ment was received with the usual credence attached to 
 such diplomatic assurances. 
 
 The year drew to a close with some symptoms of a fall 
 of temperature from fever-heat to temperate. By degrees 
 Japan, Great Britain, and Germany withdrew their forces 
 from China, only Russia sticking to Manchuria. After eight 
 months of fierce discussion Mr. Balfour's Education Bill 
 passed its third reading on December 3rd by 286 to 184. 
 In India the Coronation Durbar attested, so far as magnifi- 
 cence could attest it, the love and loyalty of India for the 
 Empire. The boundary quarrel between Argentina and 
 Chili was settled on November 20th by the admirable arbi- 
 tration award of King Edward. Christmas thus brought 
 
62 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 some cessation of strife. But probably the most important 
 event from the point of view of world-history was the 
 sending of the first Press message by Marconi wireless across 
 the Atlantic on December 22nd. But whether this was to 
 prove a greater blessing or a greater curse for the peace 
 of the world no one could foretell. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 1903 
 THE KING'S POLITICAL TRAVELS 
 
 A JOINT war, such as united Great Britain with Germany 
 and Italy in hostiHties against Venezuela, tends naturally 
 to promote friendly relations between the allied nations. 
 But in this case the result, unfortunately, was different. 
 There was much grumbling on our side against an alliance 
 which was thought to be contaminating, especially when, 
 on January 20th, in the midst of negotiations with Venezuela, 
 a German man-of-war bombarded San Carlos. The Times 
 remarked that Lord Lansdowne seemed to have no clear 
 idea of the dislike felt in England for this co-operation 
 with Germany. The tone of our Press was such that in 
 Germany the beginning of the anti-German agitation in 
 England was traced to this very episode of combined action 
 for a common interest (Schiemann, vii. 417). The British 
 Government was constrained to deny the existence of any 
 German alliance. Sir E. Grey expressed the general feeling 
 on February 8th. England and Germany, he said, had 
 often co-operated in different parts of the world ; but he 
 did not think such co-operation had been satisfactory, and, 
 though he wished for friendly relations with Germany, he 
 deprecated their being at the cost of our good relations 
 with France, Russia, or the United States. On February 17th 
 Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman struck a more friendly note 
 in the debate on the Address. He did not agree that in 
 no circumstances should we join hands with Germany, and 
 he thanked Mr. Balfour for having four days before rebuked 
 the tendency to foment feelings of international bitterness, 
 jealousy, and disUke. It was also a notable fact that our 
 
64 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 co-operation with Italy in the same hostile action against 
 Venezuela evoked no such opposition as our co-operation 
 with Germany. 
 
 By the middle of February the negotiations for a settle- 
 ment were agreed upon, and the blockade of the three 
 Powers was raised. The claims against Venezuela were to 
 be referred to the Hague Tribunal, Great Britain and Italy 
 each receiving £5,500 on the signing of the Protocol of 
 February 13th, and Germany £76,000, payable by instal- 
 ments. The question of the priority of the claims between 
 the blockading and the non-blockading Powers was to be 
 submitted to the Hague, where the adjudication lasted 
 from September 21st to November 15th (Ann. Reg., 1903, 
 429). 
 
 The German Chancellor said, on January 20th, that 
 England and Germany had acted in the matter with perfect 
 loyalty to each other, though the EngHsh Press had treated 
 Germany in this and other affairs with marked " ill-will " 
 (Reden, ii. 286). But the episode contributed nothing to 
 the improvement of Anglo-German relations, nor to the 
 popularity of Mr. Balfour's shaking Government. 
 
 Nor did the episode improve the relations between 
 Germany and the United States. So long ago as Decem- 
 ber II, 1901, Germany had given notice of her intention 
 of taking proceedings for the recovery of her claims against 
 Venezuela, and the Government at Washington had replied 
 that it was no part of the Monroe doctrine to protect any 
 American State from just punishment for misconduct. A 
 similar notice by the British Government was not given 
 till November 11, 1902. The prevalent notion in England 
 that the Anglo-German agreement to act together was the 
 result of the Kaiser's visit to the King at Sandringham 
 had no foundation. 
 
 The farther we got from the Boer War the keener became 
 our preparations for the next war. Every war brings another 
 one nearer, so that there is no such thing as " a last war." 
 The naval estimates were three millions in advance of those 
 of the preceding year, and the First Lord fairly described 
 
THE KING'S POLITICAL TRAVELS 65 
 
 them as hitherto " unparalleled either in peace or war." 
 Mr. Ritchie, Chancellor of the Exchequer, in his Budget 
 speech, spoke of the 6z milHons for the Army and Navy as 
 " gigantic items " ; but he lived in what now seems a 
 Golden Age. There was, of course, a new scheme for 
 improving and increasing the Army. Consols fell from 
 114 to 90 ; rarely was there so black a year as 1903 from 
 the financial point of view {Ann. Reg,, 1903, 242). The 
 Thanes were beginning to fly from Macbeth ; in other 
 words, many Unionists were seceding from Mr. Balfour 
 because they were irate with the Government's army 
 scheme ; with what in those days seemed a reckless expendi- 
 ture ; and with the weakness of its foreign poHcy. The 
 annihilation on April 28th of a British force in Somaliland 
 when in pursuit of a Mullah, called the " Mad," when Colonel 
 Plunkett and 8 officers and 174 men lost their lives, added 
 to the growing dissatisfaction with the CoaHtion Government 
 of Unionists and Liberal Imperialists. 
 
 Probably the King was sensible of the relief of a temporary 
 escape from the troubles of his kingdom when on March 31st, 
 against the wish of his Ministry, says Lord Redesdale 
 (Memoirs, ii. 758), he left Portsmouth on the Victoria and 
 Albert yacht, bound for Portugal, where he was cordially 
 welcomed by King Carlos. But from a journey whose 
 more ostensible motives were health and pleasure, important 
 political issues were not excluded. The Times derived it 
 from *' one of the most important Portuguese statesmen " 
 that the result was an offensive and defensive alliance, and 
 an English guarantee of the colonial integrity of Portugal. 
 The King's words that the " unassailable maintenance 
 of commerce " in both the dominions and colonies of 
 England and Portugal was the object of his dearest 
 wishes and endeavours was interpreted in Germany to 
 mean that England would protect Portugal's African 
 colonies from the piratical German Empire (Reventlow, 
 199 ; Schiemann, iii. 122-3). A threat was seen where 
 perhaps no threat was intended. In any case it was the 
 beginning of the uneasiness with which from that time 
 
 5 
 
06 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 onwards the foreign travels of the King were regarded in 
 Germany. 
 
 From Portugal the King, after touching at Gibraltar, 
 Malta, and Naples, reached Rome on April 27th. He was 
 warmly welcomed by the King of Italy, and " the enthusiasm 
 of the populace was extraordinary.'* His visit to Pope 
 Leo XIII on April 29th still further emphasized the growing 
 poHtical affinity between England and Italy. Fear on the 
 part of Germany of an attempt to detach Italy from the 
 Triple AlHance probably explained the visit of the Kaiser 
 to Rome which followed so soon afterwards, on May 2nd. 
 Rightly or not, EngHsh historians detected " a certain 
 coldness *' in the Italians* acclamations of the Kaiser and 
 their displeasure at the military pomp of the Kaiser's 
 escort. Nor, indeed, were signs wanting that the Triple 
 Alliance was '* distinctly losing ground in people's minds, 
 if not in diplomatic arrangements " ; and perhaps one real 
 indication of this was the fact that, shortly after the Kaiser's 
 departure, Italy on May 7th denounced her commercial 
 treaties with her two allies Germany and Austria (Ann. Reg., 
 1903, 264). 
 
 From Rome King Edward travelled to Paris, arriving 
 in that gaily decorated capital, amid the cheering of enor- 
 mous crowds, on May ist, and staying there till May 5th, 
 when he returned to London, where again enormous crowds 
 cheered his return. At Paris he laid the foundations of the 
 following year's Dual Entente. He made speeches at the 
 British Chamber of Commerce and at the Hotel de Ville ; 
 responded at the Elys^e to the toast proposed in his honour 
 by President Loubet ; had frequent meetings with the 
 President and with M. Delcasse, the Foreign Minister, as 
 well as with other persons of political or social importance. 
 At a later date the Temps referred to Edward VII and 
 M. Delcasse as the joint authors of the Anglo-French Entente. 
 It was doubtless the result of a long contemplated and 
 prepared move for the protection of French and English 
 interests against German rivalry or attack M. Poincar^ 
 was probably wrong in assigning it to a sudden impulse, 
 
THE KING'S POLITICAL TRAVELS 67 
 
 when he said in 1913 that with a swift glance Edward VII 
 calculated the work to be done. He promptly contem- 
 plated '* as both possible and desirable a combination which, 
 without breaking up existing alliances, and without incur- 
 ring the reproach of provocation or offence to any Power, 
 would associate in a common work for peace and for united 
 effort the two richest nations of the world " (Legge's King 
 Edward in His True Colours, 85). So it might appear to 
 President Poincard in 1913, and such might have been the 
 King's hope in 1903 ; but the uneasiness it was bound to 
 produce in Germany was insufficiently regarded, and the 
 first definite step was taken on the road that was to lead 
 to the war of 1914. Baron Eckhardstein, who was in Paris 
 at the time, wrote with some alarm about it to the Chancellor : 
 " There is now a new Triple Alliance in course of formation 
 which, even if it is not put in writing, is calculated to cause 
 us, to say the least, political and economic trouble throughout 
 the world " (248). So estrangement from Germany increased 
 pari passu with our friendship with France. President 
 Loubet and M. Delcassd returned the King's visit from 
 July 6th to 9th ; and a dinner with the King at Buckingham 
 Palace, a smart luncheon at the Guildhall, a visit to Windsor 
 Castle, a State ball at Buckingham Palace, made the days 
 pass fast and merrily that assisted the negotiation for the 
 Arbitration Treaty between England and France that was 
 signed on October 14th. The treaty excluded, indeed, from 
 the scope of settlement by arbitration all questions affecting 
 the vital interests, the independence, or the honour of either 
 country : the most fruitful and frequent causes of wars ; 
 but it was a great step in advance, and the King's skilful 
 diplomacy undoubtedly removed many causes of friction 
 that had for long prevented a good understanding between 
 the English Monarchy and the French Republic. So it 
 came to pass that by August of this year the King had 
 ** come to be looked upon abroad as the greatest diplomatist 
 of the day " (Blunt's Diaries, ii. 68). 
 
 The Arbitration idea as a preserver of peace enjoyed 
 another triumph this year in reference to the disputed 
 
68 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 Alaskan boundary between Canada and the United States. 
 Russia, having sold to the United States the interests she 
 had in the territory under a treaty made with England 
 in 1825, was now represented by the States. It was accord- 
 ingly agreed that a bare majority of three American and 
 three British jurists should decide on the interpretation of 
 the treaty, and four out of the six gave a decision which, 
 though it cut off Canada, much to her disappointment, 
 from any approach by sea to the golden region of Klondyke, 
 was wisely accepted as a lesser evil than continued dis- 
 putation. 
 
 It is said that among King Edward's superstitions was 
 that of expecting some disaster if two knives were allowed 
 to lie on a table before him at the same time : for which 
 reason his guests might never be served with more than 
 one knife at a time (Legge, More About King Edward, 299). 
 If international disaster could have been averted by regarding 
 only France and disregarding Germany as beyond the range 
 of vision, the eulogies that have been lavished on the King's 
 foreign policy would have needed no qualification. Madame 
 de Thebes, tl:3 prophetess whom he so often consulted 
 (ib, 309), imparted to him no prescience of the disaster 
 that was to come four years after his death. 
 
 Whilst the King was on his travels, Mr. Chamberlain 
 returned to England on March 14th, having endeavoured 
 with much success to heal the sores of racial antagonism 
 between British and Dutch which the war consequent on 
 his Imperialist policy had done so much to foment. Con- 
 quest and annexation, the first steps on the path of 
 Imperialism, was shortly to be followed by the demand 
 for the protection of trade within the Empire : its logical 
 corollary. 
 
 The King on his return found many anxieties awaiting 
 him in the field of foreign affairs. The question of the 
 Bagdad railway was beginning to cause friction. The 
 Convention of March 5, 1903, between the German Anatolian 
 Railway Company and Turkey, to which England's consent 
 had not been asked, seemed to concentrate under German 
 
THE KING'S POLITICAL TRAVELS 69 
 
 control the whole scheme of future railway development 
 in that region, to the exclusion of England ; and on the 
 admission of General Von der Golz on March 27th that 
 the railway was to be extended with British consent to 
 Koweit on the Persian Gulf, and that the railway would 
 constitute the shortest mail-route between Paris and Bombay, 
 fears about our interests in India and Mesopotamia naturally 
 found expression in Parliament (April 8th). Russia, too, 
 was among the rivals for the possession of the Persian Gulf, 
 and was engaged in trying to get Persia under her control 
 by means of loans, commercial treaties, and concessions 
 for roads. Could we support the Bagdad railway scheme 
 without offending Russia ? Germany had hoped that we 
 should subscribe one-fourth of the capital required ; but 
 on April 22nd Mr. Balfour announced the intention of the 
 Government to cold-shoulder the plan altogether. It was 
 argued that it should be an international concern, not 
 dependent only on French and German capital. The 
 decision gave immense satisfaction to the country, corre- 
 spondent with the mortification felt in Germany at the 
 check thus given to a scheme which might have proved 
 of immeasurable benefit to the world. A great change of 
 feeling about the Bagdad railway had been part of the 
 strong antagonism to Germany which had been ushered 
 in with the new reign. Only three days after the signature, 
 on November 27, 1899, of the Convention at Constantinople 
 which had placed the railway in German hands. The Times 
 had declared that there was '* no power into whose hands 
 Englishmen would more gladly see the enterprise fall ' ' 
 than into Germany's. But since then all sorts of idle alarms 
 had been raised to defeat a scheme which would have 
 benefited the world, not Germany alone, by converting 
 300,000 acres of desert into flourishing cornland. Germany 
 felt herself debarred from sharing in the task of world- 
 improvement such as France was carrying out with success 
 in Algeria and Tunisia and ourselves in Egypt. On May 5th 
 Lord Lansdowne uttered a general threat to any Power it 
 might concern : England would regard a naval base or a 
 
70 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 fortified post erected by any Power on the Persian Gulf 
 as " a very grave menace " to British interests, and one 
 which would be resisted '* by all the means at our disposal." 
 In other words, it would be a casus belli. 
 
 Trouble, too, was brewing in the Balkans, where the 
 Turks, in their suppression of the Macedonian insurrection, 
 committed atrocities on a scale to which even a staggered 
 Europe could no longer be indifferent. Turkish mis- 
 government cried loudly for reform, and the first move in 
 this direction came from Austria and Russia. Their pro- 
 posed scheme of reforms was announced by Lord Lansdowne 
 on March 13th as having been presented to the Porte on 
 February 21, 1903. Nothing much came of these efforts 
 to stay the course of the massacres and burnings that 
 horrified the world ; for later in the year the German 
 Ambassador at Constantinople, Baron von Bieberstein, was 
 instructed " to give the Sultan an energetic lecture '* that 
 it was high time for him to carry out the reforms drawn 
 up at Miirzsteg on October 9, 1903, by Count Lamsdorff, 
 the Russian Foreign Minister, and Count Goluchowski, the 
 Austrian Foreign Minister. The Sultan was very tough, 
 wrote the Kaiser to the Czar, and seemed to think that a 
 refusal to comply with the wishes of Austria and Russia, 
 ** backed by me," would do him no great harm (Letter 28, 
 November 11, 1903). It had to be made plain to the Sultan 
 that ''on no account whatever would the Kaiser raise a 
 hand in his support or speak a word in his favour if he 
 refused compliance with the wishes of the Austrian and 
 Russian Emperors, who had shown almost angehc patience 
 and forbearance with him." The Kaiser added that Bulgaria 
 was showing dissatisfaction with the reforms as insufiicient, 
 and was turning to Italy, England, and France, and thus 
 bringing about the old *' Crimean Combination " against 
 Russian interests in the East and the union of the demo- 
 cratical Parliamentary countries against the Imperial mon- 
 archies of Europe. And certainly this was the main tendency 
 of the time, and one consequence of King Edward's diplomacy 
 to that date. 
 
THE KING'S POLITICAL TRAVELS 71 
 
 It was very natural for Germany to support Russia and 
 Austria in this matter of the Balkan reforms, and to express 
 German approval of Russian policy the Crown Prince of 
 Germany had been sent to the Russian Court in January. 
 There was no reason to regard this German action as other- 
 wise than perfectly sincere, but in England it was condemned 
 as an endeavour to *' curry favour ** with Russia, in order 
 to facilitate the negotiation of a commercial treaty with 
 her adapted to the new German tariff (Ann. Reg., 1903, 293). 
 And in the Far as in the Near East, Russian policy caused 
 much disquietude. Russia showed no disposition to evacuate 
 Manchuria, as she was pledged to do ; rather she showed 
 a marked disposition to plant herself therein permanently, 
 and to treat Manchuria, as well as Mongolia, as a Russian 
 protectorate, from which the commerce of other countries 
 was to be rigorously excluded. Anarchy was at its worst 
 in Russia this year : strikes, riots, murders, revolutionary 
 movements in the Army, made up her history, with a 
 massacre and plundering of the Jews at Kisheniff on 
 April 20th that appalled the world. War could hardly 
 make matters worse, and might even improve them for 
 certain interests. Nor was Japan averse to a war, fearing 
 for her interests in Mongolia and Korea. War with Russia 
 was strongly desired by the Japanese public, and a declara- 
 tion of war was only averted by the resistance offered to 
 it by six of Japan's most distinguished statesmen (Ann. Reg., 
 1903, 385-6). On December 4th the Kaiser imparted to 
 the Czar a rumour that Japan was secretly arming the 
 Chinese with 20,000 new rifles and other things " behind your 
 and my backs against us," inflaming the Chinese against 
 the White Race in general, and constituting a grave danger 
 to Russia's rear in the event of a conflict with Japan on 
 the coast (Letter 29). 
 
 The Kaiser's letter reveals a certain sympathy between 
 Germany and Russia in the Far East ; but the more 
 restricted interest of Germany in that region was repeatedly 
 insisted on by Count Biilow. *' If there is a point in East 
 Asia, I may say in the world, where we have nothing to 
 
72 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD Til 
 
 seek, it is Manchuria " {Reden, ii. 5, December 10, 1903). 
 In East Asia German policy was simple, he said on the 
 same day : *' to maintain and develop what we possess 
 there, but not to burn our fingers in affairs which do not 
 concern us " (ib, ii. 24). " It lay formerly, and still did so, 
 in the interest of all the Powers, and in any case in that 
 of German policy, that out of the war in Asia (between 
 Russia and Japan) no world- war should develop " {ib. ii. 76, 
 April 12, 1904). There is no reason to doubt that in these 
 utterances he was perfectly sincere. But MiUtarist States 
 speak in vain to one another. 
 
 In the midst of these complications occurred one of 
 the worst political assassinations recorded in history : the 
 murder of King Alexander of Servia, of Queen Draga, and 
 the Prime Minister and the War Minister by Servian mihtary 
 officers (June 12, 1903). Such was the moral perversion 
 of the Servian people that the Colonel, who perished after 
 blowing up the royal apartments with a bomb, was eulogized 
 as having died " on the field of honour for his fatherland " ; 
 the other conspirators as having rendered their country 
 " a tremendous service *' ; the Skupstchina and all the 
 Servian papers approved of the crime ; and at a great 
 Christian service the Army received the thanks and praises 
 of the nation for its heroic action. The Czar, the Prince of 
 Montenegro, and the Emperor of Austria sent congratulatory 
 telegrams to King Peter, elected on June 15th ; but Count 
 Biilow regretted that the assassination had not been followed 
 immediately by an invasion of Servia by Austria and by 
 the occupation of Belgrade and other important places : a 
 course which might have averted later troubles (Baron 
 Margutti's Francis Joseph, 223). The Austrian Emperor 
 called the deed *' an iniquitous and accursed crime," and 
 happily in England the same view prevailed, as was shown 
 by the withdrawal from Belgrade of the British Consul- 
 General, and by the refusal of King Edward to be repre- 
 sented by an ambassador in a country reeking with so 
 abominable a tragedy. But one interpretation of this was 
 that the King refused to recognize Peter *' of set purpose," 
 
THE KING'S POLITICAL TRAVELS 73 
 
 as he wished to keep Servia up his sleeve as a possible 
 reward for Austria in return for her dropping her alHance 
 with Germany (ib. 258). 
 
 But in England attention to foreign affairs is easily 
 diverted by some new political sensation at home ; and this 
 was now provided by a question of internal importance 
 which threw all Continental events into the shade, and which 
 contained the seeds of the ultimate disruption of the seem- 
 ingly invulnerable Unionist Government. On May 15, the 
 same day on which the Prime Minister wais defending 
 the repeal of the tax laid on corn in the previous year, 
 Mr. Chamberlain launched at Birmingham his policy of a 
 preferential tariff on colonial imports for the closer union 
 of the constituent parts of the Empire. For the rest of 
 the year httle else was talked or thought about but the 
 relative merits of Free Trade and Protection. The Cabinet 
 itself was soon as divided as the country at large. Mr. 
 Balfour gave no certain lead to his distracted followers. 
 On October 6th, prior to starting his Protection crusade, 
 Mr. Chamberlain resigned his office of Colonial Secretary ; 
 and on the same day, by reason of their disagreement with 
 him, Mr. Ritchie, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Lord 
 George Hamilton, Secretary for India, saw fit to resign 
 their respective offices. The Duke of Devonshire's resigna- 
 tion dealt the Government a still harder blow. Rising 
 tempers brought strong words to the surface. Lord 
 Spencer, at the Eighty Club on October 8th, spoke of 
 the great ImperiaHst as " one of the most reckless and 
 unscrupulous of statesmen, who never hesitated to use 
 any weapon that would advance his cause " ; and on 
 October 19th, at Manchester, Lord Morley (then untitled) 
 declared that he had never known a group of politicians 
 in a more squaHd or humihating position than that of the 
 Government. On the other hand. Lord Wolseley threw 
 the weight of his wisdom into the opposite balance. But the 
 quarrel tended to reunite the Liberal Party. Lord Rosebery, 
 on November 7th at Leicester, appealed to the Free 
 Trade Unionists to join the orthodox Liberals to ward 
 
74, ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 off Protection, and on November 17th, at Frome, Sir Henry 
 Campbell-Bannerman graciously and gladly accepted the 
 olive-branch. 
 
 Owing to this fiscal excitement, less attention was 
 bestowed than was deserved on the movements of the 
 monarchs of Europe in their own or in other countries. 
 King Edward and the Queen, after a visit to loyal Scotland 
 in May, paid that visit to Ireland which the behaviour of 
 certain Irish Members in the Parliament of 1902 had caused 
 to be postponed. They arrived in DubHn on July 21st, 
 there to be met with a vote of 40 to 27 in the Dublin Cor- 
 poration against presenting them with the conventional 
 Royal Address ; it was Home Rule that Ireland wanted, 
 not a King who was powerless to grant it, even if he so 
 desired. It was perhaps some consolation for the rudeness 
 at Dublin that at Maynooth College, Archbishop Mannix, 
 President of the College for the next nine years, received 
 the Sovereign with an enthusiastic welcome, and the students, 
 in his honour, displayed a picture of the King's recent 
 Derby winner. Diamond Jubilee, in a frame decorated with 
 the King's racing colours. After a tour that included 
 Belfast and other principal Irish towns, and that lasted 
 for ten days, the King and Queen returned to England on 
 July 31st ; but it remains probable that for the pacification 
 of Ireland more was done by the passing of Wyndham's 
 Land Purchase Act, to enable tenants to acquire the free- 
 hold of their holdings, than even by the smiles of the blandest 
 and most benevolent of British Sovereigns. 
 
 Three weeks after the King's return, on August 22nd, 
 Lord SaUsbury made his final exit from the world's stage : 
 a statesman whose great merits as a Prime Minister were 
 much enhanced by contrast with the defects of his successors. 
 He had done much at one time to maintain friendly rela- 
 tions with Germany, and had greeted the alliance between 
 that country and Austria as *' glad tidings of great joy " ; 
 but the praise often ascribed to him of having averted a 
 European coalition against England during the Boer War 
 is more justly due to the German Chancellor, Count Bulow, 
 
THE KING'S POLITICAL TRAVELS 75 
 
 who, overriding the passions of the German people, was 
 consistently averse to incurring any such risk at a time 
 when the German fleet, then in its infancy, lay hopelessly 
 at our mercy. 
 
 International intrigue continued to be sustained with 
 great spirit on all sides. In the first days of September 
 the King's visit to the Emperor of Austria at Vienna was 
 interpreted in Germany as aiming at the detachment of 
 Austria from the Triple Alliance. It has been denied that 
 there was any policy for encircling Germany ; as by Lord 
 Haldane, who writes : " The notion of an encirclement of 
 Germany, excepting in defence against aggression by Ger- 
 many herself, existed only in the minds of nervous Germans " 
 {Before the War, 36). But the belief in it was universal in 
 Germany, and was shared by two successive Chancellors, 
 Billow and Bethmann-HoUweg. Baron Margutti writes of 
 " the policy of isolating Germany, which the English King 
 Edward VII, true to his principles, had taken up with rare 
 diplomatic skill and pursued with no less determination " 
 (Life and Times of the Emperor Francis Joseph, 20). The 
 Baron thought that the object of such a policy was to keep 
 Germany at peace by cooling her ardour for war [ih. 266) ; 
 and of course in this respect there was much to be gained 
 from the mere impression that the loyalty of Austria to the 
 Triple Alliance might be undermined. Attempts on the 
 loyalty of the Austrian Emperor became almost annual 
 events. Hardly had the King's visit in September 1903 
 passed than the Kaiser visited Vienna, *' to display to the 
 world the firmness of the alliance between Austria-Hungary 
 and Germany." It was necessary, said Count Billow, " to 
 stiffen the backbone of the rulers of Austria-Hungary by 
 personal conference " (ih, 223). Of the meeting at Ischl 
 in August 1904 the Baron asserts that he heard definitely 
 from the members of the King's suite that the King had 
 come "in order to make tangible proposals to the Emperor 
 with a view to loosening the alliance with Germany. . . . 
 Edward VII was exerting himself deliberately to secure the 
 isolation of Germany, and began by bringing pressure to 
 
76 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 bear on the Emperor Francis Joseph/' though without 
 success. At Marienbad that same month the King unfolded 
 his plans with " greater freedom, and the old Emperor 
 returned from Marienbad very depressed.'* The next year, 
 in August 1905, it was the same story : " It cost Francis 
 Joseph a tremendous effort to resist the enticements of a man 
 so highly gifted and well versed in diplomacy as the British 
 King." As a result of an afternoon drive on that visit 
 to Ischl the Emperor returned " quite broken, and seemed 
 utterly worn out " ; he hardly spoke at dinner, and " had 
 to make an extreme effort not to collapse in his chair " 
 (ib. 260). In 1906 there was no meeting, but the Kaiser 
 visited Vienna in June, to indicate the firmness of the 
 German and Austrian alliance. The King and the Austrian 
 Emperor met again both in 1907 and ia 1908, but always 
 with the same result, and on the last occasion the King's 
 departure with his suite was "in an almost frigid atmo- 
 sphere." And when for the last time the King was at 
 Marienbad in 1909, and asked to be allowed to visit the 
 Emperor on his return journey, the offer was " courteously 
 but very definitely decUned." Nothing could shake the 
 Emperor's loyalty to Germany, though, if it be true that 
 one of the inducements to him for doing so was permission 
 to annex Servia, it may well be that compliance with the 
 King's wishes would have been to the ultimate advantage of 
 Austria. Possibly the Emperor lived to regret his unbending 
 firmness ; in any case the King's death had " a shattering 
 effect " on Francis Joseph, who thought that, had the King 
 lived, the war of 1914 might have been averted. 
 
 The most obvious way of deterring Germany from a 
 warhke policy, such as was commonly attributed to her, 
 was to detach Austria and Italy from her side ; but justifiable 
 as such a policy may have been in the interests of peace, 
 it could not conduce to friendly relations with Germany, 
 and her constant hostihty to this country during the whole 
 of the King's reign was a consequence not altogether 
 unnatural. It may be that the balancing of one group of 
 Powers against another group, as of the Triple Alliance 
 
THE KING'S POLITICAL TRAVELS 77 
 
 against the Triple Entente, might keep the world at peace 
 through mutual fear, but only on condition that each group 
 remained proof against disintegrating forces ; and it was 
 precisely this condition that never existed, as each group 
 was continually plotting to weaken the soUdarity of the 
 other. 
 
 There was great movement of the monarchs of Europe 
 this autumn to their different Courts. As the Kaiser 
 followed King Edward at Vienna, so the Czar followed the 
 Kaiser, and the Kings of Belgium and of Greece followed 
 the Czar. The reforms in the Balkans to be enforced on 
 Turkey much occupied their minds. The Czar subsequently 
 spent six weeks in Germany, where he met the Kaiser 
 frequently at Wiesbaden, Darmstadt, and Wolfsgarten 
 (Hammann, 121 ; Schiemann, iii. 320). On November nth 
 the Kaiser wrote to the Czar of " the charm of the two 
 days " spent with him at Wolfsgarten on November 4th 
 and 5th, and deplored the death of the eight-year-old 
 daughter of the Grand Duke of Hesse, who was believed 
 in Russia to have died of some poisoned soup intended for 
 the Czar ! 
 
 The closer sympathy between England and France, 
 effected in great part by the visits of the King to Paris, 
 encouraged M. Delcasse and M. Barrere to draw Italy into 
 closer relations with France, thus tending to the formation 
 of that new Triple Alliance which was perfected twelve 
 years later, and which the Kaiser spoke of as " the Crimean 
 Combination." The success of King Edward's visit to the 
 King of Italy in April naturally raised diplomatic hopes 
 of the good effect of a visit from the King of Italy to Paris. 
 This visit, arranged by M. Delcasse and the Itahan Count 
 Tornielli for July, had to be postponed on account of the 
 imminent death of Pope Leo XIII. But it took place in 
 October, and it is remarkable that the Czar of Russia, 
 despite his apparent attachment to the German Kaiser 
 and to Germany, sent a letter to President Loubet, wherein 
 he expressed his profound sympathy with France's recent 
 agreement with England and with her rapprochement with 
 
78 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 Italy (Ann Reg., 1903 ; Chronicle, 30). King Victor 
 Emmanuers visit to Paris immediately preceded his visit 
 to London, where, in the company of his Queen and the 
 Italian Foreign Minister, S. Tittoni, he arrived on Novem- 
 ber 17th. More important than their stay at Windsor Castle, 
 the Address from the City of London, the lunch with the 
 Lord Mayor, or the cheering of crowds, were the conferences 
 between Lord Lansdowne and Tittoni, confirming on all 
 points the existing accord between Italy and England. 
 Italy thus seemed to be fast veering from her old attachment 
 to the Triple Alliance and to be coquetting with England and 
 France. So at least it appeared to Germany, with inevitable 
 and growing mistrust of King Edward's aims. 
 
 An estrangement was also increasing between Germany 
 and the United States. The displeasure caused in America 
 by the Venezuelan episode had not abated, though Germany 
 had found it advisable to change her ambassador at Wash- 
 ington, Baron von Sternburg, for Dr. von HoUeben. Count 
 Biilow was compelled to disclaim all kinds of wild designs 
 attributed to Germany. He had to declare in September 
 that Germany had no thought of acquiring territory in 
 South America, or of setting up a German State in Brazil 
 by encouraging emigration to that country ; Germany had 
 no political aspirations in the New World : she only wished 
 for as large a share as possible in the trade of South America 
 (Ann. Reg., 1903, 292-3). But this was just what other 
 countries did not desire her to have : hence the propaganda 
 calculated to prevent her from sharing in the commercial 
 feast of the world. 
 
 The German Chancellor had no easy task to perform in 
 guiding his country through these shifting quicksands of 
 attraction and repulsion, but he performed it with con- 
 summate abiHty. No statesman of his time knew so well 
 how to combine urbanity with force. Following Plato in 
 his division of the State into reason and passion, he regarded 
 himself, or the Government, as the embodiment of the 
 State's Reason, to which the general public, representing 
 its Passions, was bound to remain in subQrdina,tion. Foreign 
 
THE KING'S POLITICAL TRAVELS 79 
 
 policy, therefore, was a matter solely for the head of the 
 State ; it mattered Httle or nothing what other people 
 thought or wished, whether they called themselves Pan- 
 Germans or Social Democrats. He recognized that in recent 
 times popular passions counted far more than formerly in 
 affecting international affairs ; it was no longer a case of 
 the people paying for the follies of their kings, as in the 
 line of Horace, ** Quidquid delirant reges, plectuntur Achivi/* 
 but of kings being forced to pay for the folHes of their 
 people. And it was his pride that as Chancellor he had 
 conducted Germany's foreign policy with a sole view to 
 Germany's lasting interests ; he flattered himself that, 
 whatever the popular feehng of England and Germany 
 might be to one another, there was no change in the friendly 
 relations between the monarchs and the Cabinets of London 
 and Berhn (Reden, ii. 400, January 20, 1903). He rebuked 
 the perpetual grumbling of certain German papers at foreign 
 Powers, and contended that Chauvinism and patriotism 
 were not the same things (ib. ii. 405). The suspicions of 
 Germany cherished abroad he attributed mainly to the 
 alarmist speeches and writings of his enemies the Social 
 Democrats, who at the General Election in June increased 
 their numbers in the Reichstag from 58 to 81. He denied 
 against Bebel that the Kaiser's remark, *' Our future is on 
 the water," had any aggressive intention against other 
 Powers ; it did not mean that Germany hoped to drive 
 every other Power off the sea, but only that Germany 
 meant to use the sea as other countries used it, and as the 
 Hanse towns had used it centuries ago (ib. ii. 410). As 
 to the idea of a German fleet strong enough to overpower 
 that of England, it was absurd, for, when the German 
 fleet was complete, it would rank only as fourth or fifth 
 among the fleets of the world (ib. ii. 409). But, although 
 all this was ably and truly said, it had httle effect in allaying 
 the fears that were fostered on our side of the North Sea. 
 The feverish condition of Europe caused by two antag- 
 onistic alHances led to a general development of miHtarism, 
 which happily tended to produce its own antidote in the 
 
BO ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 great spread of anti-militarist propaganda. Socialism, repre- 
 senting chiefly the classes that suffered most from the 
 miseries of compulsory service, drew the main portion of its 
 political force from a pacifism which saw in the Army itself 
 the real source of its woes. In France such pacifist pro- 
 paganda penetrated the very barracks, and when General 
 Andr6, the Minister of War, undertook to prosecute the 
 disseminators of doctrines so fatal to war, he was supported 
 in the Chamber by 441 votes to 55 on January 23, 1903 
 (Ann. Reg., 1903, 247). In Germany militarism assumed 
 an even more sinister aspect. Suicides arising from the 
 maltreatment of soldiers became distressingly common. 
 The Government tried in April to stop the scandal of such 
 cruelties by announcing that it was not the intention of the 
 Kaiser nor of the men's superiors that soldiers should suffer 
 in silence, and that they debased themselves by submitting 
 to maltreatment ; but it was after this that one non- 
 commissioned officer was convicted of 576 charges of 
 cruelty ; that Lieutenant Skilling wass entenced to fifteen 
 months* imprisonment and to dismissal from the service 
 for 698 cases of cruelty ; and that Fransky received five 
 years' imprisonment and degradation for having been guilty 
 of beating the men under him or of spitting in their faces 
 in 1,520 instances. Against the Socialists' denunciations 
 of such frightful abuses of discipline only one answer could 
 be made, and that was that such cases were exceptional 
 and not typical, and that it was unreasonable to over- 
 generaHze from them to the bad state of the Army as a whole. 
 This time-honoured plea for the protection of abuses is 
 seldom made in vain, nor can it be denied that 180 con- 
 victions of German officers for cruelty in the course of a 
 year showed no large percentage of irregularities in so vast 
 a body as the German Army. 
 
 In a world where the mutual irritation of nationaUties 
 constituted the leading feature, it was unfortunate that 
 the German Kaiser made a remark which did much to 
 accentuate his unpopularity in England. Speaking at 
 Hanover on December 19th, at a military banquet, he said, 
 
THE KING'S POLITICAL TRAVELS 81 
 
 in praise of the German Legion which served in the Peninsular 
 War and at Waterloo, that, " in conjunction with Bliicher 
 and the Prussians at Waterloo, it saved the English Army 
 from destruction." Such a reading of history could not 
 but be displeasing to the subjects of his uncle ; and, if no 
 offence was meant, offence was naturally taken — as it often 
 needlessly was at many other speeches of the Kaiser, of 
 which certain sentences, torn from the context or the cir- 
 cumstances of the speech, could be interpreted as having a 
 minatory purpose. ** Our future is on the seas," for instance, 
 words spoken at Stettin on September 23, 1898, on the 
 occasion of the opening of the new harbour, and again at 
 the Cuxhaven Regatta in June 1901, had the merely 
 commercial meaning that in future maritime interests 
 would absorb a larger part of German life than before 
 (Kaiserreden, 340) ; but it was used freely by the Alarmist 
 Press to make our flesh creep as a threat to our maritime 
 supremacy. Mr. ElHs Barker's article on the Kaiser in 
 the November number of the Fortnightly Review, 1902, was 
 a good specimen of a literature purposely directed to the 
 promotion of national ill-feeling. It was dreadful to read 
 how the Kaiser's " desire to increase the territory of his 
 country was more than an ambition with him : it was a 
 passion " {Modern Germany, 33) ; yet Sir Charles Dilke had 
 described our own King much in the same way, as wanting 
 *' to take everything everywhere in the world " {Life, i. 500). 
 It was indicated by the same writer that the Kaiser was 
 at one with the wild dreams of the Pan-Germans for the 
 absorption of Holland, Switzerland, and Denmark {Modern 
 Germany, 41), though Prince Billow's declaration was verified 
 by facts, that no German with any claims to reason had 
 any thought of such a thing ; the idea was quite insensate 
 {Reden, iii. 358). And, putting German ImperiaHsm at its 
 worst, it was admitted, even by a Quarterly Reviewer, that 
 the Pan-German visions of expansion were *' no vaster 
 than our own Imperialist ideals, and with a far greater 
 weight of organized force behind them " (July 1908, 93). 
 Nor was the Chancellor's argument unfair, that it was absurd 
 
 6 
 
82 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 to make the German Government responsible for every- 
 thing that appeared in the Press, seeing that in no country 
 had the Government less control of the Press than in 
 Germany, as was shown by the frequent Press attacks on 
 the Government and even on the Kaiser himself (Reden, 
 iii. 326). It was true, as the Chancellor said on Decem- 
 ber 14th of the closing year, that if the relations between 
 England and Germany were not such as were pleasing to 
 reasonable people, the fact was due to the presence in each 
 country of persons who attributed to the other designs 
 and tendencies of which the majority of reasonable people 
 had never even thought (ib. ii. 281). 
 
 But it was to little purpose that the Chancellor con- 
 sistently and repeatedly beUttled the importance of Pan- 
 German propaganda. On our side it was taken much too 
 seriously : as, for example, in Mr. W. T. Arnold's book on 
 German Ambitions, which, having originally appeared in 
 letters to the Spectator under the signature of Vigilans sed 
 Mquus, was published this year. The author raked up 
 all the splenetic utterances he could find against this country 
 by German professors or pubHcists. " The depth and 
 truculence of German ill-will '* to us had been incidentally 
 revealed by the Boer War, but " the outburst of bile was 
 too universal and too acrid " to be explained by that war 
 alone (i). Yet the French or Russian Press might have 
 been ransacked with equal success. Anonymous writing of 
 no authority whatever served Mr. Arnold's turn as well 
 as another. What if the author of Germania Triumphans 
 did foresee the expansion of German territory to the Dnieper 
 and the Volga, or dream of the Crimea as the centre of 
 the future German Empire (73), or of England expelled 
 from Egypt, and of Turkey ruHng in her place ? (yy). Why 
 quote from a literature described by Mr. Arnold himself as 
 " absolutely insane " ? (83). Germany had always been 
 prohfic of such visionaries. When, in 1853, Paul de Legarde, 
 orientalist and theologian, had pronounced the acquisition 
 of Trieste a vital question for Germany (Deutsche Schriften, 
 1892, 29), or when, in 1863, Rodbertus, the economist, had 
 
THE KING'S POLITICAL TRAVELS 83 
 
 expressed the hope of one day seeing Germany succeeding 
 to the heirship of Turkey and regiments of German soldiers 
 and German workmen stationed on the Bosphorus, Europe 
 had not turned a hair over the prospect ; but now any 
 idle dream of German expansion was raked up from the 
 past and made to serve that passion for alarm which was 
 the best nutriment for the growth of hostility between 
 England and Germany. When Dr. Karl Eisenhart, another 
 writer included in Mr. Arnold's list of " half -sane " Pan- 
 Germans, declared, in his Abrechnung mit England (*' Reckon- 
 ing with England ") in 1900, that the treatment of the 
 Samoan dispute by England and America had made an 
 irreconcilable enemy of the greatest and strongest military 
 Power in the world, which was capable of nursing for two 
 centuries its hopes of revenge (89), was it necessary to pay 
 the least attention to such foolish vapouring ? 
 
 It was from the mutual irritation due mainly to such 
 dehberate or credulous misrepresentation of each other's 
 designs that a mental atmosphere arose between England 
 and Germany from which an ultimate state of war could 
 hardly fail to follow. Imperialism, or the idea of force 
 and might as the last word in foreign politics, had gained 
 in every country the upper hand. Herbert Spencer, one of 
 the chief of our nineteenth- century philosophers, proved 
 himself also one of our chief prophets in a sphere where 
 prophecy was not very difficult. He died in October of 
 this year {1903), but on August loth he is said to have 
 " lamented the disappearance of ' right ' from the range 
 of modern poHtics in Europe, and denounced the Transvaal 
 War as an outrage on humanity, ' There is coming,' he 
 said, ' a reign of force in the world, and there will be again 
 a general war for mastery, when every kind of brutahty will 
 be practised ' " (Blunt's Diaries, ii. 69). As came, of 
 course, to pass in the fulfilment of the necessary years. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 1904 
 THE ANGLO-FRENCH ENTENTE 
 
 The chief world-event of 1904 was the war between Russia 
 and Japan ; for thus the negotiations of the previous year 
 finally ended early in February, when the Japanese attacked 
 the Russian ironclads at Port Arthur before any declaration 
 of war. It has been freely alleged that the German Kaiser 
 was the cause of the war, but it was so nauch the habit of 
 the time to attribute all evil happenings to the Kaiser that 
 the allegation cannot pass without inquiry. The story is 
 definite enough, if Dr. Dillon's memory of a conversation 
 ^ he had with Count Witte. the_Russian Jinance Minister, 
 may be trusted. The Count expressed himself as *' abso- 
 lutely sure " that as soon as the Kaiser had " decided to 
 weaken Russia, he pushed her into the Far Eastern 
 swamp. . . It was he who laid the snare into which 
 the Czar fell. . . . Wilhelm II is the author of the war. . . . 
 It was he who pushed Russia into the war with Japan " 
 (Dillon's Eclipse of Russia, 347-363). 
 
 But the statement was bare of evidence, and Dr. Dillon 
 himself gives an account of the origin of the war which 
 leaves the Kaiser outside it altogether. He ascribes an 
 entirely Russian origin to the war, which resulted from the 
 ^ ^ machinations of three Russians, friends of the Czar, who 
 by reason of certain lumber concessions on the Yalu out- 
 witted such statesmen as Count Witte, Count Lamsdorff, 
 and General Kuropatkin, and prevented the complete 
 evacuation of Manchuria. A " pair of intriguers " (Abaza 
 and Bezobrazoff), " in their quest of pelf, plunged the country 
 into a war which cost hundreds of thousands of human lives " 
 {ib. 283). It was at a special Council held on January 28, 
 
 84 
 
THE ANGLO-FRENCH ENTENTE 85 
 
 1904, that " an untruth minted by Abaza and passed 
 off on the Mikado's Government '* caused the war. So 
 Count Witte himself told Dr. Dillon, and in his Memoirs 
 the Count repeated this story, though there he made the 
 Czar himself the primary cause : "he alone is to be blamed 
 for that most unhappy war '* (186). The advice of the 
 Russian Foreign Minister and of the Minister of War not 
 to evacuate Manchuria accorded with the Czar's own 
 " thirst for military glory and conquests " (ib. loi). 
 
 Though again accusing the Kaiser of having dragged 
 Russia into the war (414), the Count clearly explained the 
 war as of purely Russian origin. He was, says Dillon, 
 " so incensed against the gang that was answerable for 
 the war that he could with difficulty curb his tongue when 
 talking about them " {Eclipse of Russia, 287). But then 
 why such anger with the gang, if it was all the liaiser's 
 doing ; and, if the Czar alone was responsible, how could 
 the Kaiser have been so too ? 
 
 As we were united to Japan by the alliance of 1902, and 
 as France had been in alliance with Russia for many years, 
 the danger arose of France and England becoming involved 
 in the conflict between their respective allies. Happily King 
 Edward was firm against any war with Russia ; his sym- 
 pathies were thought to be entirely on her side (** entschieden 
 russenfreundlich gemeint," says Sehiemann, iv. 80) ; and he 
 had in this country the support of a large peace party. 
 But in Russia the feeling against us was very bitter ; " The 
 attitude of the Court clique and of the Emperor himself," 
 says Count Witte, " towards England was one of strong 
 hostility " (Memoirs, 189). And the feeling extended to 
 the lower classes, which regarded the Japanese War as really 
 an English war ; and our neutrality was of questionable 
 friendliness. In June, Isvolsky issued a circular which 
 declared that England and America had stirred up Japan 
 against Russia (Sehiemann, iv. 171). And in the early 
 months of the year the Russian Press vied with our own 
 in hostility to Germany, till in March the Russian papers 
 received Governmental instruction to change their tone. 
 
86 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 One might wish that our own Press had been subject 
 to some such control ; for in Germany the idea that from 
 the very first year of the King's reign a definite anti-German 
 policy had been adopted by our Press was not conducive 
 to harmonious relations. Articles in The Times, the Spectator , 
 the National and Fortnightly Reviews, gave rise to the suspicion 
 of a design to destroy the German Empire by a triple alliance 
 of England and France and Russia {ih. iv. 123). The Tory 
 Press openly rejoiced over the new Teutophobe policy which 
 had come in with the new reign : *' this new departure, 
 which we should never forget would have been impossible 
 without the sagacious initiation of the British Sovereign " 
 (National Review, October 1904, xliv. 227) ; " the King's 
 action had emancipated Great Britain from the long and 
 odious tradition of graceful concessions to Germany " 
 
 (»■*. 55). 
 
 In the creation of the mental atmosphere out of which 
 war springs these workings of the Press are all-important 
 in modern times. And of course the German Press was no 
 more blameless of provocation than any other. The idea 
 of an allied Press agitation against Germany in England, 
 France, and Russia is said to have been started in St. Peters- 
 burg in April and May, 1901, by Andr6 Chferadame, author 
 of the book previously referred to (L'Europe et la Question 
 d'Autriche), which was described by a Quarterly Reviewer 
 as '* an epoch-making effort in this kind of literature '* 
 (October 1908, 578). Professor Schiemann predicted that the 
 combination of Powers aimed at by this league of journalists 
 would end in a world-war ; he believed that the whole 
 scheme was under the supervision of M. Delcass6, the French 
 Foreign Minister, and at that time undeniably the foremost 
 of Germany's political enemies (iv. 199). It was his organs, 
 the organs of the French Foreign Office, the Temps and 
 the Journal des Debats, which propagated in France this 
 scheme of the triple anti-German alliance {ib. iv. 127). 
 But the war with Japan relaxed Russia's interest in it, and 
 the Professor exempted King Edward from personally 
 sharing the views of The Times and the National Review, 
 
THE ANGLO-FRENCH ENTENTE 87 
 
 thinking that he strove rather for the reconcilement of 
 differences, where no essential interests were at stake 
 (ib. iv. i66). 
 
 The political situation meantime remained critical 
 throughout the year, owing to the offence given in Russia 
 by the strong sympathies of our Press with Japan. But 
 the continued successes of Japan exercised a wholesome 
 influence on the inducements of the Russian Government 
 to add to her war with Japan the trouble of another 
 war with Japan's most formidable ally. And happily 
 France, though Russia's ally, had been bound to us by 
 the Arbitration Treaty of October 14, 1903. In the debate 
 on the Address on February 2nd, Sir Henry Campbell-Banner- 
 man, in congratulating Mr. Balfour's Government on the 
 friendly relations thus established with France, and on the 
 announcement of similar agreements being in course of 
 negotiation with Italy and the Netherlands, as conducive 
 to the increase of mutual international friendship, commented 
 deservedly on the " noble and worthy part " taken by the 
 King in bringing about so pleasing a result. But the visit 
 of the Kaiser to the King of Italy came as a reminder to 
 the world that the Triple Alliance still existed, and that 
 Italy's fortunes were bound up with Germany's. 
 
 The arrangements made in the July of the previous 
 year, during the visit to London of President Loubet and 
 M. Delcasse, for a closer connection between England and 
 France, took practical shape on April 8th, in what was known 
 as the Moroccan Convention or the Dual Entente. It is 
 not going beyond the truth to say that this entente was 
 by far the most important event of the King's reign. In it 
 lay the seeds of future peace or war. It was unfortunate 
 that the Kaiser felt aggrieved at not having been informed 
 of it till after it was an accomplished fact. When some one 
 told him that there was nothing in it but what every one 
 knew, and that that was harmless enough, the Kaiser replied, 
 " If that be so, why was it hidden from me ? The conceal- 
 ment makes me suspect something that has not emerged 
 into the light. And whether it is there or no, I am warranted 
 
88 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 in suspecting it " (Dillon's Eclipse of Russia, 331). This was 
 the source of much subsequent trouble. 
 
 The entente was received with immense jubilation in 
 England, and was regarded as mainly the work of the King. 
 " The entente cordiale, which now exists," wrote one 
 " Quirinus " in the National Review for October 1904, " is 
 certainly owing to his (the King's) initiation and largely to 
 his work " (xliv. 51). This was the general belief both 
 at home and abroad. And it is difficult to believe that 
 with no better authority than general belief a statesman 
 like Lord Cromer, on the occasion of the freedom of the 
 City being conferred on him in honour of his many years' 
 rule in Egypt, on October 28, 1907, would have referred to 
 the Anglo-French Convention as the work of " that very 
 eminent diplomatist His Majesty the King, and Lord Lans- 
 downe." " The great and sudden improvement in Anglo- 
 French relations was justly ascribed to the wisdom and 
 courtesy with which the King made clear to France that 
 the suspicions which prevailed between ourselves and her 
 had no foundation " (Dilke's Life, ii. 501). Eulogy of the 
 King reached the highest level. Sir William Harcourt 
 pronounced him the greatest of our Kings since William 
 the Conqueroi (Lord Redesdale's Memoirs, i. 172). And 
 when Mr. John Ward, M.P., at the Leeds Trade Union 
 Congress in September, referred to the King as " almost 
 our only statesman," the enthusiasm that greeted the remark 
 indicated the universal feeling of the country. So almost 
 boundless did this feeling become that in the first number 
 of our most popular organ, John Bull, beginning a series 
 of Open Letters with one to the King, its eminent editor, 
 Mr. Bottomley, wrote : ** With your Majesty on the throne 
 a Parliament is almost a redundancy. You are our Foreign 
 Minister, our Ambassador to all the Courts. ... So long 
 as you live, European war will be impossible " (May 12, 
 1906). 
 
 The broad effect of this momentous treaty was to give 
 us a free hand in Egypt in exchange to France of a free 
 hand in Morocco. In neither country were there to be any 
 
THE ANGLO-FRENCH ENTENTE 89 
 
 commercial disadvantages to the subjects of the other for 
 thirty years, and for longer periods of five years afterwards, 
 unless agreed otherwise ; and each country was to afford 
 the other diplomatic support in their Egyptian or Moroccan 
 affairs. And of course at any time diplomatic support 
 might involve military support. But, despite this danger, 
 it was a great achievement to secure peace between us and 
 France. And it added to this security that on the same 
 day agreements were reached on many points that had 
 nothing to do with Egypt or Morocco. Since the peace of 
 Utrecht in 1813, the right of the French to land and dry 
 fish on the shores of Newfoundland had caused constant 
 friction ; and now the French gave up their old rights, in 
 return for a rectification of their territories in West Africa. 
 The Madagascar and New Hebrides quarrels were also 
 settled ; and the question of respective spheres of influence 
 in Siam, so nearly a cause of war under Lord Rosebery's 
 Government, was removed from the number of burning 
 disputes. 
 
 This was all to the good. But in France, where the 
 virus of Imperialism had taken a strong hold, the Colonial 
 party still pressed for the annexation of, or a protectorate 
 over, the whole of Siam as their only possible ultimate 
 satisfaction (Ann. Reg., 1904, 373). And in Morocco especially 
 did the Colonial party take the same line. M. Lucien Hubert, 
 a French deputy, and described as "an apostle full of the 
 fire of the Colonial party," in a work on colonial expansion, 
 devoted a chapter to the advocacy of a French protectorate 
 over Morocco, with the French in occupation of Fez and 
 the gradual suppression of the Sultan. He thought this 
 the only policy for forestalling the Moroccan appetites of 
 England and Germany. And indeed only so recently as 
 January 1901 it was the case that in the discussions between 
 Chamberlain, the Duke of Devonshire, and Eckhardstein 
 about an Anglo-German alliance the partition of Morocco 
 between ourselves and Germany was agreed upon [Eckhard- 
 stein, 222-3). Ill the same way Lord Salisbury, in 1898, was 
 keen on the partition of Turkey between ourselves and 
 
90 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 Germany and Austria as part of an alliance with the latter 
 Powers. The right or wrong of such partitions troubled 
 no one in those days. But against M. Lucien Hubert's 
 proposed Moroccan policy M. Meline, once Premier of France, 
 protested powerfully in La Ripublique Frangaise of March 28, 
 1904, contending that the raids by Moroccan tribes on the 
 French Algerian frontiers, which were the excuse for these 
 proposals, required but a limited effort for their repression 
 (Aflalo, Truth About Morocco, 194-200). And Germany took 
 alarm at the avowed ambitions of the French Colonial party, 
 and war seemed a possible development of the situation. 
 
 Nor is it improbable that war would have resulted 
 immediately, had it been known in Germany that certain 
 important secret clauses were signed on the same day as 
 the public Declaration : clauses of which the world in general 
 was to remain in ignorance till the revelation of their actual 
 terms by the French Press in November 191 1. A territorial 
 partition of Morocco between France and Spain was the 
 ultimate aim of these secret clauses, regardless of the rights 
 of Germany to a voice in the matter or of the right of those 
 other Powers which, after sittings lasting from May 19, 1880, 
 to July 3rd, had on the latter date signed the Convention 
 of Madrid. As it had been agreed at the Conference in 
 London in 1871 that no international treaties, or parts of 
 them, could be cancelled or altered by any one Power without 
 the consent of all the other signatory Powers, Germany 
 argued that the Madrid Convention covered the present 
 case. Its basic principle was the independent sovereignty 
 of Morocco, and when in 1890 Germany had made a com- 
 mercial treaty with Morocco, she had first submitted it to 
 the consent of the Powers that had signed the Convention. 
 So she contended for a right to be consulted on the new 
 arrangements. 
 
 It was not till October 3rd that the Franco-Spanish 
 Declaration was made ; and when, in accordance with 
 our agreement with France in April, this Declaration was 
 sent to Lord Lansdowne, it was accompanied by a Convention 
 about Morocco that was to be kept " entirely secret," On 
 
THE ANGLO-FRENCH ENTENTE 91 
 
 October 6th, Lord Lansdowne " fully recognized *' the " con- 
 fidential character of the Convention," and promised that 
 it should be " duly respected *' ; so that the complicity of 
 our Foreign Office in the scheme of partition can admit of 
 little doubt. Referring to the episode at a later date, Baron 
 Greindl, the Belgian Minister at Berlin, wrote on May lo, 
 191 1 : " Besides the public agreement, France signed a secret 
 treaty with Spain (a secret which was very badly kept) 
 concerning the partition of the Sherifian Empire/* Nor is 
 it likely that the secret remained for long unknown to the 
 German Chancellor : a secret that was to poison the life 
 of Europe for the rest of the King's reign. The secrecy 
 seemed part of a deliberate intention to exclude Germany 
 from a policy which she thought she had a right to share. 
 And if the policy was desirable in itself, might not territorial 
 concessions elsewhere have been found as a solatium to 
 Germany ? But it was preferred to face the risk of war. 
 Seven years later, when the secret clauses were revealed, 
 Lord Lansdowne, in a debate on Morocco (November 28, 
 191 1), defended the course taken by himself and the King : 
 it had been well, he said, to keep the secret at the 
 time, but the hour had come when publicity was desirable, 
 because many people, knowing that there were secret articles, 
 were not slow to suggest that, while contracting a strictly 
 limited engagement, we had surreptitiously added obHgations 
 of a more extended scope. So he was glad that publicity 
 had burst the bubble. But surely the reason given for 
 reveahng the secret in 191 1 appHed equally well, or indeed 
 more so, to revealing it in 1904 ; to the saving of that spirit 
 of mistrust and suspicion which was the greatest possible 
 danger to peace in the intervening years. M. Flourens 
 gives no proof for his theory that King Edward deHberately 
 raised the Moroccan question in order to bring about a quarrel 
 between France and Germany, hoping either that the Kaiser 
 would go to war with France, in which case he would be 
 defeated by the joint forces of England and France, or 
 that, by declining the challenge thus addressed to him, 
 he would suffer irrecoverable humiliation {La France Gonquise, 
 
92 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 72-5) . But in any case the Dual Entente, with its consequent 
 Franco-Spanish protectorate over Morocco, and " popularly 
 ascribed to the initiation of the King " {Ann, Reg., 1904, 
 99), brought a European war perceptibly nearer, and 
 contributed greatly to that ultimate catastrophe in 1914. 
 
 It is probable that the Press crusade against Germany 
 and the Kaiser were to a large extent due to the concealment 
 from the public of salient facts connected with the entente. 
 It does not appear that even all the Cabinet were aware 
 of its secret commitments. The negotiations were carried 
 on, with the King assenting or directing, by Mr. Balfour, 
 Prime Minister ; by Lord Lansdowne, Foreign Secretary ; 
 and by Mr. George Wyndham, the Irish Secretary. And the 
 same three Ministers signed the treaty on behalf of England 
 at Clouds, the house of Mr. Wyndham's father, on April 8th 
 (Blunt 's Diaries, ii. 163-75). With this " very small 
 inner Cabinet of the Cabinet " rested the whole transaction. 
 But the amazing thing is that, according to Mr. George 
 Wyndham, it was " absolutely known to him [Wyndham] 
 through his former connection with the War Office, that 
 it was part of the entente with France that, in case of war 
 with Germany, an English contingent of 160,000 men should 
 be placed on the Continent in support of the French Army. 
 It was intended that this should operate at Antwerp, but 
 later the plan was changed," etc. [ih. ii. 381). It was 
 so often denied that the entente implied any hostility to 
 Germany that, unless this statement of October 13, 191 1, 
 can be disproved, it shows that war with Germany was 
 contemplated from the very start, and the German surmise 
 that the entente was aimed at her was correct. It was 
 this surmise that kept Europe in a state of fever till war 
 broke out ; and it remains a reflection on the supposed 
 democratic character of our Constitution that, without the 
 least knowledge or approval on the part of the nation, its 
 peace and the peace of Europe should have been thus exposed 
 to the utmost possible hazard by a mere handful of men 
 who derived not the smallest authority to do so from the 
 will or the wish of the people. In the matter of foreign 
 
THE ANGLO-FRENCH ENTENTE 93 
 
 policy, which touches the general happiness of the community 
 more closely than any other, the Crown still retains relics 
 of supreme power ; both Queen Victoria and King Edward 
 regarding the direction of the country's foreign affairs as 
 more than any other the special province of the wisdom of 
 the Sovereign. 
 
 The treaty, however, so far as declared, failed to give 
 complete satisfaction in France or in England. The French 
 Chamber did not ratify it till November 13th, and then not 
 till after a debate of three days, when it was carried by 
 a majority of 215 to 37. But the Press showed rifts in 
 the chorus of triumph. Strong opinions were expressed 
 against Spain's having any share of the spoil ; the entire 
 possession of Morocco by France, wrote M. Reclus on May 
 26th, was a question of life or death to France (" // s'agit 
 d'etre on de n'etre pas, tout simplement," vSchiemann, iv. 181). 
 It was said that, despite the majority in the Chamber, no 
 section of French opinion was in raptures over the treaty, 
 and that England had been the greater gainer by it - • • ' 
 (ib. iv. 29, 293). 
 
 But not even in England was satisfaction unqualified. 
 " Never in our recollection," wrote the Morning Post, 
 " has Great Britain given away so much for nothing." ^^^^^iV^' 
 And Mr. Aflalo, with every competence to judge, had ^""fjjj^ 
 no small public behind him when he predicted that the ^ • 
 agreement would " carry with it most fatal consequences ^^^ 
 to the interests of this country: consequences disastrous 
 strategically, politically, and commercially " {Truth About 
 Morocco, 226). The Foreign Office had, he .thought, shown 
 itself " hopelessly unequal to the occasion " ; there was 
 not in all its archives *' a more painful evidence of incom- •' ' ' 
 petence than this Anglo-French agreement in so far as 
 it related to Morocco " {ib. 262). And as the future of 
 Morocco concerned all the nations of Europe, " why should 
 a Concert of the Nations not have been summoned to 
 settle the whole question ? " 
 
 This was precisely the question that was asked in 
 Germany, where no criticism of the treaty was expressed 
 
94 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 more condemnatory of it than Mr. Aflalo's. But there 
 it was the letting loose of the waters of strife. Especially 
 in Pan- German circles was the treaty regarded as a diplomatic 
 humiliation for Germany. Happily the Chancellor, who 
 always treated the Pan- Germans as a negligible quantity, 
 took a cooler view : which might well have been warmer, 
 had he yet known of the secret clauses that were part of the 
 entente. Its object, he argued, was simply to dispose of 
 several Anglo-French disputes ; there was no reason to 
 regard it as directed against Germany. In Morocco, German 
 interests were mainly commercial, which Germany must 
 and would protect ; but there was no reason to suppose 
 that any foreign Power wished to infringe them (Reden, 
 ii. 74). He applied the same cooHng reflections to the 
 Russo-Japanese War : no German commercial interests 
 were directly touched by it, and Germany's chief interest 
 lay in preventing the war from developing into a world- 
 war ; for which reason her chief object was to remain strictly 
 neutral herself and to keep China neutral also (ib. ii. 75-6, 
 April 12). 
 
 But the Dual Entente, which M. Poincare once declared 
 to have been the joint work of M. Delcassd and of King 
 Edward, was of supreme importance to the future of Europe. 
 Professor Schiemann asserts that in France M. Delcasse's' 
 Moroccan policy was by general admission inspired by the 
 King (viii. 98, March 11, 1908). Only future time can 
 show whether the poHcy was a wise one. The entente 
 was the first of a series of ill-defined agreements which 
 were not quite alUances but which involved many of their 
 disadvantages. A plausible case for them has been made by 
 Lord Haldane : that as the navies of France and Russia 
 and Italy were all growing, our own interests of security 
 made it urgent that we should estabUsh friendly relations 
 with those countries by removing causes of friction with 
 them, in Newfoundland, in Egypt, in the East, and in the 
 Mediterranean (Before the War, 86). But, as Germany's 
 Navy was also growing, why not have applied the same 
 poHcy to her for the removal of causes of friction ? Lord 
 
THE ANGLO-FRENCH ENTENTE 95 v 
 
 Haldane claims that at a later date the British Cabinet 
 and himself did strive to establish a similar entente of 
 friendship with Germany [ih. 103). In 1912 the idea was 
 to extend the friendly relations of the entente "so as to 
 bring Germany and Austria-Hungary within them and get 
 rid of anxiety about the balance of power and the growth of 
 armaments *' {ih. 146). Yet, as the Kaiser and his Ministers 
 knew perfectly well in 1906 that the promise to land 160,000 
 men on the Continent to aid France against Germany was 
 part of our French entente, was it not rather much to expect 
 an offer for an entente to be welcomed in Germany which 
 excluded a similar promise of aid to Germany against France ? 
 The impossibihty of promising mihtary aid to each side 
 against the other must from the first have ruled out of the 
 region of practical politics all question of an entente with 
 Germany. 
 
 But there was one point on which England and Germany 
 were brought into common accord ; for as neutrals in the 
 Russo-Japanese War each Power had the same interests 
 to defend against the claims of the two belligerent Powers. 
 Russia's claim to treat rice and other foodstuffs, coal, and 
 raw material as contraband, and to exercise the right of 
 searching British or German merchantmen for such things, 
 united both Governments in indignation against the stopping 
 of their vessels in the Red Sea and sending them for examina- 
 tion by a Prize Court. The German Social Democratic 
 Party, for all its pacifist professions, favoured a threat of 
 war against Russia when some German vessels were captured 
 by Russian warships, one German paper demanding that 
 the Chancellor, in the case of the steamer Sontag, should send 
 the German Fleet to Cronstadt (Billow, Reden, ii. 194, 284). 
 We experienced similar troubles. The British steamer the 
 Knight Commander was sunk by the Russian squadron at 
 Vladivostok, because suspected of carr5dng contraband. 
 Mr. Balfour had to remind British complainants of the 
 abstract right of belligerent cruisers to stop neutral vessels 
 and to examine their papers ; we could not object to other 
 Powers exercising a right which we ourselves always enforced. 
 
96 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 But fortunately Russia replied in conciliatory terms to 
 complaints about the Vladivostok incident, and the stress 
 of the war disposed her to moderation with all Powers. In 
 September she surrendered her claim to treat rice and food- 
 stuffs as contraband, and, though she did not yield on the 
 point of coal or raw material, she issued instructions for 
 the avoidance of complaints, and British ships ceased to 
 be captured. 
 
 But such questions of international law troubled the 
 poHtical mind of our country far less than problems of nearer 
 domestic interest. The fiscal question, the Licensing Bill, 
 and the ordinance for importing Chinese labour into the 
 Transvaal occupied most of the time and thought of the 
 country. The Licensing Bill, to promote temperance by 
 reducing the number of licences, began its stormy career 
 on April 20th ; what, if any, compensation the dispossessed 
 publicans were to receive came to ecUpse in interest even 
 the fiscal dispute. A great meeting of 12,000 persons to 
 protest against the Bill on May 28th indicated the strength 
 of feeling roused by the Government's plan ; but though 
 at the end Mr. Asquith proposed the rejection of the measure, 
 it ultimately survived the strife of tongues and became law 
 on August 15th. It finds its place in one of the thinnest 
 Statute Books ever printed. Chapter 28 of the year. 
 
 It was, however, the Chinese labour question which more 
 than any other undermined the strength of the Unionist 
 Government. The bright promises of Imperialism had 
 proved fallacious. Lord Milner's sanguine hopes of financial 
 recovery in the Transvaal after the war were disappointed. 
 Agriculture and mining showed but feeble signs of recovery. 
 The natives were far from flocking to the mines. The 
 High Commissioner was thus faced with a deficit of £700,000 
 in the Transvaal and Orange River budgets, and the question 
 was how to meet it. The answer was, by reducing the 
 South African Constabulary ; by postponing the payment 
 of the 10 millions out of the 30 millions which the 
 Transvaal was to pay for the cost of the war ; but above 
 all by an ordinance for importing labour from China. Lord 
 
THE ANGLO-FRENCH ENTENTE 97 
 
 Milner asked leave of Mr. Lyttleton, then Colonial Secretary, 
 to agree to these proposals ; he had " no shadow of doubt ** 
 about the wisdom of the decision of the Cape Legislative 
 Council to introduce the Chinese in December of the previous 
 year ; and, however undesirable in itself, there was no 
 alternative. And to these arguments Mr. Lyttleton bowed, 
 regardless of the hostility to the scheme manifested in Cape 
 Colony, and to the storm of opposition that arose in England. 
 In vain Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, on March 21st, 
 moved a vote of censure against the Government for not 
 having disallowed the ordinance for Chinese labour ; the 
 Unionists defeated him by 299 to 242. The first batch 
 of Chinamen reached Durban on June i8th — 1,049 unhappy 
 men, driven to work for ten hours a day for a shilling. By 
 the end of October there were 13,000 Chinese miners at 
 work, and at the end of the year the number had risen to 
 20,000 ; but in October the natives at work had reached 
 a record number, and made it look as if after all the natives 
 might have supplied a sufficient number. But a report 
 presented to the Cape Parliament on the treatment of the 
 natives on the Rand mines threw a lurid light on the reluc- 
 tance of the natives to offer their services ; for it appeared 
 that the wages paid them were less than the wages promised ; 
 that they were obliged to work on Sundays ; that they 
 were flogged when ill (and presumably more so when well) ; 
 that they were subject to ill-treatment from the mine 
 overseers and from the native police ; and that their mortality 
 was excessive. The wonder seemed to be rather that they 
 came at all than that they did not come in swarms. 
 
 But, if Imperialism developed with such unpleasant 
 features in South Africa, it was in Russia that it showed 
 itself at its worst. In that country war and revolution 
 were advancing hand in hand. Political murders became 
 so common as scarcely to count as crimes at all ; and among 
 the most striking of such atrocities was the murder of General 
 Bobrikoff , Governor of Finland, as he was entering the Senate, 
 by the son of a Senator, on June 17th, and the bombing 
 of M. Phleve, Minister of the Interior, as he was driving 
 
 7 
 
98 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 to the Warsaw Station on July 28th. Murders of this sort 
 came to be regarded as titles to honour, as in the case quoted 
 by Schiemann from a German correspondent in Russia 
 of a large meeting at Kief where officers and others rose 
 from their seats and drank with loud applause (klalchten 
 Beifall) in honour of Phleve's murderers (iv. 327) : a pro- 
 ceeding followed on many occasions at other banquets in 
 Russia (Dillon's Eclipse of Russia, 142). The Japanese 
 War, too, became increasingly unpopular. The Institute of 
 Mining Engineers condemned it on February 23rd as " a policy 
 conceived solely in the interest of a small privileged minority 
 to the detriment of the vast majority of the Russian people " 
 (which might perhaps be said of many other wars besides 
 Russia's) ; and the Committee of Self- Protection characterized 
 the war as senseless, declared that the claims of Japan 
 were absolutely legitimate, exhorted the public not to send 
 patriotic offerings, which would never reach them, to the 
 the sick and wounded, and advised soldiers to refuse mihtary 
 service. Count Tolstoi issued a striking manifesto against 
 the war in June, and bitterly attacked the Church for giving 
 it that religious character which Churches are so prone to 
 do. The Count's anti-militarist teaching soon bore fruit 
 as the year went on ; for in the November mobilization of 
 Reservists thousands of Russians crossed over the Austrian 
 and German frontiers to avoid mihtary service ; they 
 fought with the regular forces, destroyed factories and 
 shops, or were forced into the military trains at the 
 point of the bayonet. Russia took to enhsting even convicts 
 for military service. Two months of service relieved a man 
 of a year of penal servitude. Of 7,000 convicts so enrolled 
 at Sakhahn, 5,000 were murderers. Some 15,000 ex-convict 
 volunteers were given the privilege of living in any province 
 they pleased away from the capitals, and were restored to 
 all civil rights except to the holding of property. Of these 
 15,000 it is said that 5,000 also were murderers : a strange 
 commentary on the traditional theory of some necessary 
 connection between military service and moral character. 
 Army Reform wus naturally raised tliis year to the front 
 
THE ANGLO-FRENCH ENTENTE 99 
 
 rank of our political problems, owing to our undertaking 
 to go to the military aid of France in the event of a new 
 Franco-German war. From the date of the entente onwards 
 this was the principal concern of our statesmen. The report 
 of the Esher Commission, consisting of Lord Esher, Sir 
 John Fisher, and Sir George Clarke, asked for far-reaching 
 powers over military matters for the Defence Committee 
 and the Army Council. And it further indicated the 
 uneasiness of the time that on May 28th the Report of the 
 Royal Commission on the Militia and Volunteers went so 
 far as to recommend, among other changes, the adoption 
 of conscription on the Continental model ; though this 
 most radical proposal of a Conservative Government was 
 at once repudiated by Mr. Arnold Foster, the Secretary 
 of War, on June 2nd. The House of Lords, indeed, favoured 
 the change ; but the fact that it would add to our estimates 
 an annual sum of £25,900,000 had a cooling effect on 
 a patriotism that was more ardent than wise (Ann. Reg., 
 1904, 136, 152, 162). Nevertheless, Imperialism continued to 
 fascinate many minds, and on June loth there was a Liberal 
 League meeting at the Albert Hall which was addressed 
 by the two most shining exponents of that political creed. 
 Lord Rosebery and Sir Edward Grey. Lord Rosebery 
 tried to elucidate a distinction between an Imperialism 
 that was sane and another Imperialism that was of " a shabby, 
 advertising, and terrifying kind,'* but it was a distinction 
 with no clear difference, and the real point of the speech 
 was the intimation that, if a Liberal Ministry succeeded 
 to the Unionists, there could be no possibility of even trying 
 to establish a Parliament in Dublin : a thing that hardly 
 needed saying if the Liberal Imperialists came into power. 
 For with Sir William Harcourt's announced retirement from 
 politics on March ist, followed by his death on October ist, 
 the old Gladstonian form of Liberalism faded rapidly out 
 of existence. 
 
 Thibet was the country that next fell a victim to 
 Imperiahst treatment, whether of the " sane " or of the 
 '* shabby " kind. Trade was the pretext, fear of Russia 
 
100 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 the cause. The whole of the Russian Press without excep- 
 tion remained hostile to our Thibetan expedition (Schiemann, 
 iv. 185) which began in 1903 as a peaceful mission under 
 Colonel Younghusband with only an escort sufficient for 
 defence. But it soon became apparent that the Thibetans 
 had no desire to receive this unsolicited mission, and the 
 advance was resisted. Their attack on the invaders was 
 disastrous, their General and 600 men being killed and 
 200 taken prisoners. Other attacks of the same kind were 
 made, with similar " lessons *' for their result. The peaceful 
 mission, therefore, soon developed into a complete expedi- 
 tionary force with about 1,000 British and 2,000 Native 
 troops, which reached the capital of Lhassa on August 3rd. 
 A treaty was made on September 7th, which condemned 
 Thibet to pay an indemnity of ;f5oo,ooo (75 lakhs of rupees) 
 in seventy-five annual instalments ; the Chumbi Valley to 
 be given over as security. But as the occupation of the 
 Chumbi Valley for seventy-five years would have amounted 
 to an annexation which would have violated the promises 
 made to Russia and China, the indemnity was reduced to 
 25 lakhs, the payment of which would, it was hoped, admit 
 of the evacuation of the valley in three years. The most 
 interesting clauses of the treaty were some which corresponded 
 closely with Russia's conditions in 1903 in Manchuria : 
 without British consent Thibet was to make no territorial 
 concessions to any foreign Power ; to suffer no such Power 
 to intervene in Thibetan affairs, or to send representatives 
 or agents into Thibet ; to make no commercial concessions 
 to any such Power without granting similar or equal con- 
 cessions to Great Britain. 
 
 In such style did Imperialism leave its mark on the 
 liberty of a country whose only desire was to be left alone. 
 At a banquet given at the Hotel Cecil on July 13th 
 in Mr. Chamberlain's honour the room was decorated with 
 the inscription of that great statesman's famous words, 
 " Learn to think Imperially." The lesson was well learnt 
 and acted on throughout the year in Thibet, Afghanistan, 
 and the Persian Gulf, but it chiefly showed itself in an 
 
THE ANGLO-FRENCH ENTENTE 101 
 
 increased Press hostility to Germany, led by The Times 
 (Schiemann, iv. 314). Not, of course, that German journahsm 
 itself lacked equal vigour in this warfare of the pens ; it 
 might need the wisdom of Solomon to apportion the blame 
 fairly between the combatants. But a General Election 
 was rapidly approaching in England, and its verdict meant 
 much for Germany. Yet that country entertained no fears 
 of Chamberlain, should he become the leader of the Unionist 
 Party ; it was not thought that he would adopt an attitude 
 of lasting enmity to Germany. 
 
 Nevertheless, with all these grasping rivalries raging 
 in the world there were hopeful signs of a striving for a better 
 state of things. The principl£.jaf--A rbit ra t ion made great ' 
 progress during the year. Most important of the arbitration 
 treaties of the year was the British agreement with Germany,; 
 which was signed in July, and which followed the line^ of 
 the treaty with France of the preceding' y^$,r^ ;We cjSto^d-^ 
 into similar treaties with Sweden, Ital5^, ' Spain, and the 
 Netherlands ; they were to run for five years and were 
 to refer all disputes that did not affect the vital interests, 
 the independence, or the honour of the respective countries 
 to The Hague Tribunal. At the Guildhall on November 9th, 
 Lord Lansdowne was able to boast that during his time 
 at the Foreign Office he had signed five arbitration treaties ; 
 was actually negotiating two more ; and had been invited 
 the day before to sign an eighth with the United States. 
 An arbitration treaty was signed with Portugal on 
 November i6th, the day after the arrival of the King and 
 Queen of that country at Windsor, as declared by King 
 Edward VII at the State banquet at St. George's Hall ; 
 and a frontier difference between ourselves and Portugal 
 in South-West Africa had been settled by the arbitration 
 of the King of Italy. The Russo-Japanese War undoubtedly 
 quickened the desire for the settlement of international 
 disputes otherwise than by the ordeal of slaughter, but 
 the reservation of '* vital interests," independence and 
 honour, from the scope of arbitration left a wide loophole 
 for escape from its protection. The treaty between Holland 
 
102 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 and Denmark, however, was wider in character, being quite 
 unlimited ; not excluding any sort of quarrel from the 
 scope of arbitration. Switzerland, too, signed treaties 
 with Great Britain, the United States, Italy, Sweden, Norway, 
 France, and Belgium ; in the latter treaty not even with- 
 drawing the dangerous exception of ** vital interests " from 
 the Court of Arbitration. 
 
 Europe, however, was clearly moving towards war, and 
 the movements of the Kaiser troubled the diplomatic world. 
 In March he went in his yacht to the Mediterranean, and 
 met the King of Spain at Vigo. " The kitchen," he wrote 
 to the Czar, " was excellent, the company very merry," 
 on board the Konig Albert ; Gibraltar was " simply over- 
 whelming," the ** grandest thing " he had ever seen. He 
 raac'hed Nappies on- March 24th, and there met the King 
 of Italy on •the 26th, when he quieted him about the 
 troubles in the- Balkans, assuring him that nothing would 
 happen there, ' as "the great Empires were resolved not 
 to stand anything from anybody." Each group of aUies 
 was competing keenly for Italy's favour, and soon after 
 the Kaiser's visit President Loubet returned Victor 
 Emmanuel's visit of the previous year by visiting Rome and 
 Naples between April 24th and 30th. From Syracuse the 
 Kaiser telegraphed his condolences to the Czar for the loss 
 of so many Russian lives in the disaster of the Petropavlovsk, 
 When Bebel, the Socialist, complained of this as a breach 
 of neutrality against Japan, Count Biilow replied that 
 it was less of a breach of neutrahty than Bebel's avowed 
 wish for the defeat of Russia ; and he reproved the comic 
 papers of Germany for their having made fun for some years, 
 by malicious articles and caricatures, of the misfortunes 
 that befell a friendly country (Reden, ii. 98). 
 
 Another letter from the Kaiser to the Czar, dated June 6th, 
 shows which way the wind was blowing. He expressed 
 surprise that the French had not sent their fleet to keep 
 Port Arthur open till the arrival of the Russian Baltic Fleet, 
 but he had come to the conclusion that to prevent any such 
 help being given to Russia by her ally had been precisely 
 
THE ANGLO-FRENCH ENTENTE 103 
 
 the main object of the Anglo-French agreement ; though, 
 had France so helped with her Army or Navy, not a finger 
 would he himself have budged to harm her. As to EngHsh 
 efforts to mediate between Russia and Japan, the Kaiser 
 threw cold water on the idea. He told the Czar that such 
 mediation was the object of Sir Charles Hardinge's mission 
 as ambassador to St. Petersburg, despite Russia's strong 
 repudiation of any such proposals ; it was " most presuming 
 on England's part, seeing that the war had only just begun ; 
 she was afraid for her money, and wanted to get Thibet 
 cheaply " ; but he would certainly try to dissuade Uncle 
 Bertie from harassing the Czar with any more such proposals. 
 The first wish for mediation must come from the Czar, and, 
 if it came, he would always be at his cousin's disposal. He 
 wondered what he was going to hear from Uncle Bertie at 
 Kiel ; at all events he would keep the Czar informed ! 
 
 The letter clearly indicates the desire of King Edward 
 to bring the war to a close, as well as the Kaiser's feeling 
 towards his uncle. But the appearances of goodwill were 
 observed, and the Kiel meeting duly took place (June 
 25th-29th) in the face of the displeasure of the English Press, 
 and especially of The Times {Schiemann, iv. 183). The King 
 arrived in his yacht, escorted by four cruisers and a flotilla 
 of torpedo-boat destroyers. A gala dinner was given to 
 him by the Kaiser on the Hohenzollern ; the customary 
 toasts of cordial affection were interchanged, and the cus- 
 tomary hopes of the good services of their respective fleets 
 in maintaining the peace of all nations. At this meeting of 
 uncle and nephew no one encouraged Baron d'Estournelles 
 more than the King in the hope of bringing about a rapproche- 
 ment between England and Germany on the basis of mutual 
 concessions ; far from watching these endeavours with 
 unfriendly eyes, the King supported them " with sincere 
 cordiality and with his unique tact," nor was the Kaiser 
 hostile (Legge, More About King Edward, 46). Of the 
 sincerity of the King's wish for peace not even Count 
 Reventlow thought there was any reason to doubt either 
 then or later (242) ; the misfortune was that on our side 
 
104. ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 no corresponding belief of the Kaiser's sincerity was expressed 
 or felt. The next day both monarchs visited the dockyards, 
 and the King dined with the Yacht Club, whilst some 
 750 of the crews of the British warships were entertained 
 at supper by an equal number of German sailors. On the 
 28th the King lunched with the Burgomasters and 
 Senators at Homburg ; dining later, together with the 
 British captains, with Prince Henry of Prussia, the Kaiser 
 also being present and speaking in terms of great admiration 
 of the British Navy. On the 29th there was a yacht 
 race for a cup given by the King, who, after dining with 
 the Kaiser and the Empress, brought his visit to a close. 
 It was said that the visit was " not primarily, if at all, of 
 a political character," but in any case the Anglo-German 
 treaty of arbitration was signed shortly afterwards on 
 July 12 th, nor can it be reasonably doubted that better 
 relations resulted from the meeting. 
 
 The visit of the German Fleet to Plymouth was another 
 
 incident that was also taken in England as proof of the 
 
 Kaiser's wish to cultivate friendly relations with this country 
 
 (Ann. Reg., 1904, 291). But it was the Kiel meeting which 
 
 more especially pacified German hostility ; it being theie 
 
 thought that the great emphasis which both monarchs 
 
 ^ A had laid on their wish for peaceable and friendly relations 
 
 7 a!^-/ had blunted the edge of Delcass6's anti-German policy 
 
 K.'jf -y^as indicated by the Dual Entente (Schiemann, iv. 201). But 
 
 K^,j national differences were too fundamental to be for long 
 
 ^^ harmonized by royal courtesies. It was complained on 
 
 •» July 20th that The Times had never been more poisonously 
 
 anti-German, and that the National Review was as bad ; 
 
 if these papers represented the real mind of the British 
 
 Government and public, Germany might look any night 
 
 for an attack by the combined squadrons of England 
 
 (ib. iv. 227). On our side similar fears were cherished, 
 
 and thus from mutual provocation arose mutual fear, 
 
 producing a mental atmosphere in which no real friendliness 
 
 could take root and flourish. 
 
 And in tl^e autun^n events occurred which had a crushing 
 
THE ANGLO-FRENCH ENTENTE 105 
 
 effect on the pacifist hopes of the summer. The theory 
 of the Morning Post that the Kaiser had from the first 
 pressed the Czar into war with Japan for his cousin's speedier 
 destruction, and that when, on October loth, 1904, he urged 
 the Czar to send his Black Sea Fleet through the Dardanelles 
 to join his Baltic Fleet, he was hoping to send it to its 
 doom, seems not only inconsistent with the tone of the 
 correspondence, but still more so with the fact that in 
 October began a curious negotiation between the two 
 monarchs for a secret treaty of alliance. The suggestion 
 came from the Czar, apparently by telegram ; the Kaiser 
 replying on October 30th that he had at once communicated 
 with his Chancellor, and with him drawn up the three articles 
 of the treaty as the Czar had wished. Fear of a war with 
 England in consequence of the Dogger Bank incident on 
 October 22nd was the probable cause of the Czar's action. 
 The Russian Baltic Fleet, having started on October 13th, 
 had fired into a fleet of Hull trawlers, sunk one, and caused 
 some loss of life. Indignation in England was naturally 
 profound, though Nicholas at once telegraphed his regrets 
 to the King, and promised liberal compensation. But that 
 the excitement in England did not find vent in a great war 
 was attributed by Count Reventlow to the coolness of the 
 King, who had no wish to destroy the bridge to a later 
 rapprochement with Russia (239). And a speech by Mr. 
 Balfour on October 28th to the Conservative Conference 
 at Southampton contributed not a little to the calmmg of 
 the clamour for war. But certain journals sought to make 
 the incident an opportunity for an immediate war, not 
 with Russia, but with Germany. This was notably the 
 case with an article in the Army and Navy Gazette on Novem- 
 ber I2th, called " The Naval Horizon." " It was Germany," 
 said the writer, *' that had informed Russia of the probable 
 Japanese attack in the North Sea ; and she had kept her 
 fleet in Kiel Harbour in order to take advantage of any 
 untoward circumstance which such misinformation might 
 supply. And was it not rumoured that on October 22nd 
 the Kaiser had ordered the Kiel Canal to be cleared to facilitate 
 
106 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 the passage of ships into the North Sea ? It was intolerable 
 that a Great Power, like the British Empire, should have 
 to take precautions against even the appearance of such 
 unfriendly acts. Before now we had had to wipe out of 
 existence fleets which we had reason to believe might be 
 used against us ; and there were people in England and 
 on the Continent who regarded the German Fleet as the 
 one and only menace to the peace of Europe. The Russian 
 Fleet being now far away, the present moment was particularly 
 opportune for asking that the German Fleet should not be 
 further increased. France and Italy, Austria and Spain, 
 would probably regard with ill-concealed pleasure or open 
 approval any action calculated to remove an element so 
 ' inimicable * to a lasting peace. Might not the greater 
 part of the Mediterranean Fleet be called back to home 
 waters ? And, as some people asked what was the use 
 of the British Navy, it might be replied that there was a very 
 obvious use to which it might be put with beneficial results 
 to the cause of civilization and the quiet of the world.** 
 
 There was no mistaking the purport of this article, which 
 caused immense irritation in Germany. Nor was the idea 
 of crushing the Geiman Fleet before it had grown strong 
 enough to be dangerous confined to the Army and Navy 
 Gazette. Count Reventlow makes bold to assert that the 
 question was often discussed in the Cabinet and only dismissed 
 by reason of differences of opinion. The Admiralty and 
 the First Sea Lord, Sir John Fisher, were thought to be 
 of the same mind ; and the same view was widely held by 
 the people, in the Press, and in Parliament (254). 
 
 Thus it was that a common fear of British action drew 
 Russia and Germany together. The possibility of our 
 assisting Japan caused Russia to look to Germany for aid, 
 as indicated by the subsequently discovered letters of the 
 Kaiser to the Czar. And the Kaiser was not without hope 
 of drawing France also into the alliance : in which circum- 
 stances he drew up a treaty, purporting to be *' purely 
 defensive ** against any aggressor or aggressors upon Russia. 
 He wrote as follows to the Czar : 
 
THE ANGLO-FRENCH ENTENTE 107 
 
 " If you and I stand shoulder to shoulder, the main 
 result will be that France must openly and formally join 
 us both, thereby at last fulfilling her treaty obligations 
 towards Russia which are of highest value to us. . . . This 
 consummation once reached, I expect to be able to maintain 
 peace, and you will be left a free and undisturbed hand 
 to deal with Japan." He enclosed the draft of the three 
 articles as drawn up by himself and the Chancellor without 
 any knowledge of even his Foreign Office, and hoped the 
 Czar would approve of them. 
 
 It came to a discussion of the clauses. Again he wrote 
 to the Czar on November 17th : the localization of the war 
 and the avoidance of a European war were their guiding 
 principles ; but such a phrase as *' in order to localize the 
 Russo-Japanese War'* might be taken to mean, if it became 
 known, that the treaty was a menace of provocation against 
 England alone, in case she intervened as an ally of Japan. 
 Of a truth it was so, but every truth was not good to utter. 
 British public opinion was in "a state of nervousness 
 bordering on lunacy," and the words in question might thus 
 urge on the final catastrophe which both of them were 
 trying to avoid or *' to postpone at least." Change the 
 words into ** in order to ensure the maintenance of the 
 peace in Europe," and even *' the irate Jingoes in England " 
 would find it difficult to turn the treaty into a cause for 
 war. The wording of the final clause the Kaiser also wished 
 changed, so that there might be no appearance of aggressive 
 purposes for selfish ends or of any secret clauses ; for he 
 was anxious to ** avoid letting England take an active 
 part in the war, and if possible to hinder America from 
 joining her." Then the question arose, should France 
 be invited to join before the Russo-German treaty was 
 complete, or afterwards ? The Kaiser thought afterwards ; 
 but the Czar differed. The Kaiser thought that the Russo- 
 German treaty, once made, would have " a strong attraction 
 on France " ; if compelled to choose sides, she would do 
 all she could to restrain England from going to war. Mean- 
 time an " excellent expedient to cool British insolence and 
 
108 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 overbearing, would be [for the Czar] to make some military 
 demonstration on the Persia-Afghan frontier, where the 
 British think you powerless to appear with troops during 
 this year ; even should the forces at your disposal not suffice 
 for a real attack on India itself they would do for Persia — 
 which has no army — and a pressure on the Indian frontier 
 from Persia will do wonders in England and have remarkably 
 quieting influence on the hot-headed Jingoes in London. . . . 
 India's loss is the death stroke to Great Britain." '' God 
 grant," concluded the Kaiser, '* that we have found the 
 right way to hem in the horrors of war and give His blessing 
 on our plans " {Letter 40). 
 
 But the monarchs could not agree. The Kaiser wrote 
 again on December 21st : "My opinion about the agreement 
 is still the same ; it is impossible to take France into our 
 confidence before we two have come to a definite arrangement. 
 Loubet and Delcass^ are no doubt experienced statesmen. 
 But they not being Princes or Emperors, I am unable to 
 place them — in a question of confidence like this one — on 
 the same footing as you, my equal, my cousin and friend." 
 Otherwise the Kaiser deemed it better to do nothing, though 
 he hoped they might be useful to one another both for the 
 continuance of the war and in the peace negotiations after 
 it [Letter 42). It is clear that the idea of both the Kaiser 
 and of the Czar was to form a triple alliance with France 
 ^ , , . in order to overawe Great Britain from throwing her weight 
 on to the side of Japan. And, if this was their policy in 
 regard to France, it was obviously the policy of King Edward 
 to thwart it. 
 
 Amid all these intrigues Count Biilow studied to steer 
 a pacific course. His Chancellorship was one long duel 
 with Bebel, the Socialist leader. When Bebel complained 
 of the widespread hatred and jealousy of Germany that 
 existed abroad, the Count disputed its extent, but added 
 that, if it were true, it was only a reason the more for keeping 
 up German armaments (Reden, ii. 100). And they were 
 increased this year on the familiar ground that the best 
 guarantee for peace was a nation in arms. The Chancellor 
 
THE ANGLO-FRENCH ENTENTE 109 
 
 threw back on Bebel's own party the responsibility for 
 the prevalent bad feeling with England ; they it was who 
 spread the notion that the German Fleet was a provocation 
 and menace to England {ib. ii. 274-5), whereas the idea 
 that Germany had any notion of destroying England's 
 maritime supremacy was simply laughable ; Germany's 
 naval preparations were much smaller than those of other 
 countries ; it was absurd to think them directed against 
 England ; Germany wished to attack nobody, but only to 
 be strong enough to repel with honour any brutal and unjust 
 attack from any foreign Power (ib, ii. 282). Over and 
 over again did the Chancellor insist on the innocent nature 
 of the German Fleet, and fought against the idea, popularized 
 by the Press, of an Anglo-German naval war. What, 
 he asked, would any nation gain in these days by defeating 
 one of its naval rivals ? It would only benefit other nations, 
 delighted to step into their places in the markets of the 
 world. And, whichever side came out victorious, it could not 
 take up again the work of peace without the gravest and 
 most lasting injuries. And in such injuries he included 
 not only the actual losses of the war but those consequences 
 of hate and embitterment which often made themselves 
 felt for decades after a war was over and exercised an hypnotic 
 effect on the former adversaries : as witness France and 
 Germany (ib. ii. 123-4, December 5, 1904). Words of 
 truly prophetic wisdom, but destined, unfortunately, to be 
 thrown to the winds. 
 
 In a conversation that the Chancellor had on November 
 15th with Mr. J. L. Bashford, an Englishman resident in 
 Berlin, and published in the Nineteenth Century and After in 
 December, the same line was taken. The belief in England 
 that Germany was intriguing against her all over the world, 
 or was trying to make mischief between her and France, he 
 altogether denied. He brushed aside some of the fictions 
 of the pro-war propaganda ; as, for instance, the story that 
 Germany had been the cause of the Russians firing on the 
 Hull trawlers by " warnings " to the Russian Baltic Fleet : 
 there was not a word of truth in it. Nor was there more 
 
110 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 truth in The Times' story of October i8th, 1904, about 
 Germany's intervention in Thibet ; Germany was as 
 indifferent about Thibet as she was about Manchuria, 
 and any other version was ** a pure fabrication.** The 
 Chancellor was also put on his defence about Treitschke, 
 whose name served even in those days to foment the spirit 
 of war. What could the Count say for that historian*s 
 having written in 1884 that " the reckoning with England 
 had still to come ; it would be the longest and most diffi- 
 cult ** ? His reply was that he could not recall the words 
 in question ; but passages favourable to England should 
 be cited as well as unfavourable ones. Nor was Treitschke 
 hostile to England ; for Carlyle and other EngHshmen were 
 among his friends. Moreover, Treitschke was a poet as 
 well as an historian, and a man of strong passions ; if he 
 had used such words, it must have been in a fit of emotion 
 or rage. And if he or others had so spoken, it was not the 
 doctrine of the statesmen or educators of Germany. Nor 
 was it true that Bismarck had hated England or cherished 
 designs against England*s position in the world. Asked 
 whether he himself did not cordially dislike England, the 
 Chancellor answered that such a charge was not only new 
 to him but wholly incomprehensible. A war between the 
 two countries would be a dire calamity, and for a statesman 
 wilfully to provoke such a war, or so to act as to make it 
 possible or probable, would be an unpardonable crime. 
 German naval policy did not dream of a war with England ; 
 its sole aim was the defence of Germany's home waters 
 and of her commercial interests abroad. Such a war as 
 was imagined would completely destroy German trade, 
 and would seriously damage British trade ; it would only 
 enable their respective rivals to secure the markets of the 
 world without firing a shot. He ended by emphatically 
 repudiating any dislike personally for England, to say nothing 
 of hatred or hostility (Nineteenth Century and After, Ivi. 
 873-81) 
 
 All this was a waste of breath unfortunately ; for what 
 could assuage the passion of the time ? Our entente with 
 
THE ANGLO-FRENCH ENTENTE 111 
 
 France had committed us irrevocably to the French policy 
 of reprisals for 1870, which Gambetta had advised his country- 
 men not to speak about but never to forget. King Edward's 
 earlier intimacy with Gambetta, and his friendship in later 
 years with Delcasse and Clemenceau, cannot have left him 
 in ignorance of the feelings towards Germany which these 
 men and other political and social leaders represented. 
 It may be true, as Mr. Legge says, that " the peace for 
 which King Edward worked was no peace against Germany ; 
 it was peace for all "; but the significance of the encourage- 
 ment given to the French hopes of revanche by the Dual 
 Entente could not be misunderstood, camouflaged though the 
 treaty was as only an " understanding." There could be 
 no co-operation with France on any other terms, however 
 far in the future the issue might lie hidden. 
 
 With this sense of danger in the air the German Chancellor 
 replied on December 9th to Volkmar, the SociaHst, who 
 questioned the necessity of increasing armaments in so peace- 
 ful a state of the world. Count Biilow did not doubt the 
 pacific assurances or desires of the Powers, and thought that 
 the existing alliances conduced to the world's peace ; but 
 there were undercurrents tending to war. When one thought 
 of the lust for revenge in France, of the anti-German writings 
 of certain English papers, there was clearly no lack of com- 
 bustible matter in the world, nor of people ready to blow 
 it into flame. If Germany had been for a generation 
 a bulwark of peace, it was due to her strength ; a weak 
 Germany would at once give the rein to warlike desires, 
 and would constitute not only a danger for herself but for 
 that peace of Europe and of the world which they all desired 
 to maintain (Reden, ii. 145-6). Nor could the truth of 
 this be denied. 
 
 Whilst the seeds of future war were thus being sown 
 under the belief that they were the seeds of peace, several 
 events of interest marked the progress of the world. Perhaps 
 the chief of these was the enormous majority of two and 
 a half millions, by which on November 8th the Presidency 
 of the United States was allotted to Theodore Roosevelt. 
 
113 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 The Democrats were hopelessly beaten. The new President 
 stood for " the peace of justice/' " the cause of righteous- 
 ness," and these were to be won by a larger army and navy, 
 and by the policy, if need be, of the " big stick." In 
 Macedonia the insurrection became somewhat modified 
 after the Miirzsteg reforms had been accepted by the Porte 
 on January loth, owing to the pressure exerted on it by 
 Austria and Russia and England. On September 21st King 
 Peter of Servia was crowned ; the officers implicated in 
 the murder of his predecessor were removed from all posts 
 about his person, and Italy and Russia became again 
 represented at the Servian Court. England alone of the 
 Great Powers sent no representative to the coronation, 
 nor was it till August 17, 1906, that Servia was restored 
 to the diplomatic good graces of Great Britain. There was 
 an idea that King Edward looked to Servia as a possible 
 temptation to Austria for severing her alliance with Germany 
 (MargtiUi, 258). 
 
 At home the question of Tariff Reform, or of the 
 preferential treatment of imports from the Colonies, tended 
 to overshadow everything else ; so much so that for 
 Mr. Chamberlain's meeting at Limehouse on December 15th 
 there were as many as forty thousand applications for 
 tickets. Yet the Colonies contributed a very meagre sum 
 to the cost of the Empire that protected them ; Canada 
 paid nothing, and, as was pointed out to Mr. Balfour by 
 a deputation on December loth, the total contribution of 
 the Colonies to the Imperial naval estimates, amounting 
 to 36 milhons, was the paltry sum of £325,000. 
 
 The powerful Unionist Government had exhausted its 
 energies, and, but for the closure of debate and the " guillo- 
 tine," its scanty harvest of legislation would have been 
 scantier still. In the last ten days of the session measures 
 of the most complicated nature were rushed through the 
 House with the briefest possible debate or with none at 
 all. Parliamentary proceedmgs became a kind of farce, 
 and discredit was cast on the very system of representative 
 assemblies. The success of Parliaments postulates certain 
 
THE ANGLO-FRENCH ENTENTE 118 
 
 tacit conventions of conduct, such as were forgotten in the 
 French Chamber when on November 4th the deputy Sy veton 
 was expelled from the Chamber because in the interval 
 of a sitting he had given General Andre, Minister of War, so 
 violent a blow on the face as to fell him to the ground (Ann. 
 Reg., 1904, 264). Nor were things much better in Spain. 
 On October 29th the Chamber was the scene of free fights 
 among the members ; one member threatened the President 
 with a cane, and the President broke three bells in his vain 
 attempt to restore order. From 3 p.m. on a Saturday till 
 the morning of Monday debate resolved itself into a tornado 
 of clamour [ib. 339). 
 
 The contemporary historian could only conclude his 
 narrative of the year 1904 on a very minor key of satisfaction : 
 *' There have,*' he wrote, " been better years than 1904, 
 and many worse ones. It is something to be able to say 
 that the twelve months were not so bad as they might have 
 been, and a good deal better than was at one time feared " 
 (ib. 250). But at least the Balfour Government had steered 
 us clear of a war with Russia, and that success, though 
 only a negative title to glory, constituted a very real claim 
 upon our gratitude. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 1905 
 MOROCCO DISTURBS EUROPE 
 
 The new year began ominously for Russia with the fall 
 of Port Arthur, and the fortune of war continued to reserve 
 all her favours for Japan. And in Russia revolution followed 
 hard on the heels of defeat. The massacres of January 22nd, 
 called " Bloody Sunday," when a vast crowd under Father 
 Gapon marched to the Winter Palace to petition the Czar 
 for reforms, and was fired into with much loss of life, were 
 the prelude to a condition of the wildest anarchy that lasted 
 throughout the year. A sensation was caused when on 
 February 17th the Czar's uncle, the Grand Duke Sergius, 
 was killed at Moscow by a bomb ; but what was this single 
 crime amidst the enormous volume of crime that made 
 up the Russian annals of the time ? Let it suffice to say 
 that not even in the worst days of the Bolshevist rule nor 
 of the French Revolution was there a more fearful tale to 
 tell of the murders, robberies, and burnings that were com- 
 mitted all over the Russian Empire, and especially in the 
 Baltic provinces. 
 
 In vain the Kaiser gave his cousin the Czar most sagacious 
 advice for his political and military guidance, under the 
 guise of Continental opinion ; as that Nicholas should have 
 addressed a deputation of the crowd from the balcony of 
 the Winter Palace ; that he was held personally and solely 
 responsible for a war that was highly unpopular ; that 
 he should personally take over from Kuropatkin the Com- 
 mand-in-Chief and electrify the troops by his personal 
 presence, after the old custom of his ancestors, who used 
 to call the nations to arms before an assembly of his nobles 
 
 U4 
 
MOROCCO DISTURBS EUROPE 115 
 
 in the Kremlin at Moscow. Such an act had been expected 
 a year ago ; " but the Czar came not. Moscow was left 
 to itself ; the * holy war ' eagerly expected was not pro- 
 claimed, and there was no call to arms " (Letter 45). Soon 
 after the Peace of Portsmouth with Japan had been signed 
 on September 5th, thanks to the intervention of President 
 Roosevelt and to the support of the Kaiser, the Czar signed 
 a Constitution which conceded a Legislative Duma, an 
 extension of the suffrage, and the principle of Ministerial 
 responsibihty ; and this seemed to the world a great thing, 
 though the peasants went on gaily burning down the houses 
 of the landowners, and believing strangely that in so doing 
 they were carrying out the wishes or the commands of the 
 Czar. 
 
 In these conditions Russia's alliance came to be of less 
 value to France ; and Germany, had she wished for war, 
 had her eastern neighbour at her mercy. But she had 
 trouble enough in her Polish provinces and in her colonies 
 in South-West and Eastern Africa. The Chancellor's reply 
 to the continued agitation for a Greater Poland was that 
 Germany would never grant independence to Eastern 
 Poland ; the experience of a century had proved the un- 
 wisdom of concessions to Poland [Reden, ii. 149, January 14th). 
 He charged the Poles with having taken the offensive by 
 allowing no community with the German settlers ; the 
 only possible policy was to increase the number of the 
 latter (ih, ii. 189). 
 
 In South-West Africa the Hereros and Witbois continued 
 the rebellion of the previous year, when it was said that 
 the Hereros destroyed in a short time the fruits of the industry 
 of a decade, great cruelties being committed on both sides 
 in accordance with all precedents of African warfare. The 
 insurrection had cost Germany £2,100,000 in 1904 ; its 
 estimated cost for the current year was over three millions. 
 The Witbois were at last vanquished, but the Hereros were 
 still fighting at the end of 1905, and reinforcements had 
 to be sent from Germany. There was trouble also in East 
 Africa with the Wangonis, whose rebellion was attributed, 
 
116 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 * 
 
 among other causes, to the unpaid labour exacted of them 
 by the missionaries (^Ann. Reg., 1905, 289). 
 
 The Social Democratic Party denounced these proceedings, 
 but the Chancellor insisted that seldom or never had a 
 colonial war been waged with more patient humanity than 
 the Herero war (Reden, ii. 269, December 9th). In the 
 subjugation of the lower races by the better armed races 
 of the world it is probable that German Imperialism pleaded 
 a zeal for humanity as fairly as the Imperialism of any other 
 nation. It was in November of this same year that was 
 issued the Commission of Inquiry into the abuses of the 
 Belgian Congo, and it proved up to the hilt the truth of 
 the charges of shocking cruelties alleged by Mr. Morel. 
 And in the French Congo there was the same story of native 
 trouble ; the Senegalese troops were " kept in active employ- 
 ment,*' sometimes against enormous odds ; for in some 
 districts the natives " seem to have risen en masse " {Ann. 
 Reg., 1905, 441). Nor can one suppose that they rose for 
 the pure fun of being shot down. Even in our own East 
 Africa a military expedition had to march against the Nandi 
 tribe ; in November the Nandis sued for peace, the British 
 casualties having been 42 killed and 45 wounded, whilst 
 the Nandis had lost 636 men, and thousands of cattle, 
 sheep, and goats had been captured from them as the spoil 
 of war {ib. 432). But it was West Australia that presented 
 the worst case of all. On March 30th a report by the 
 Committee appointed by the Government of that colony 
 to inquire into alleged cruelties on the natives was the 
 subject of a debate in the House of Commons. The cruelties 
 were said to have exceeded those of the Middle Ages. The 
 Colonial Secretary, Mr. Lyttleton, admitted and deplored 
 the facts. Lord Lansdowne, too, expressed the indignation 
 and humiliation with which he had read the report ; and 
 on May 9th the Archbishop of Canterbury raised his voice 
 in honourable protest (ib. 95, 153). The trouble arose in 
 a curious way. Before the white settlers came, the natives 
 had lived mainly on kangaroos, and, when the settlers 
 destroyed the kangaroos, the natives took to kiUjing and 
 
MOROCCO DISTURBS EUROPE 117 
 
 eating instead the cattle of the settlers. It had become the 
 practice to bring both criminals and the witnesses to the 
 trial chained together in gangs, and if such hardships pre- 
 ceded the trial, it is perhaps unlikely that the penalties 
 which followed it were conspicuous for greater clemency. 
 
 On January 4th Professor Schiemann wrote of the 
 Moroccan question as having become " really acute " (v. 6) : 
 in which case it can hardly have been the defeat of Russia 
 by Japan at the battle of Mukden in March, depriving 
 France of any help from her ally in an anti-German war, 
 which tempted Germany to raise the Moroccan crisis of the 
 year with a view to a fresh attack on a defenceless France, 
 as suggested by Mr. Ellis Barker in his book on Modern 
 Germany (134). It was not this that brought a new Franco- 
 German war within the horizon, but the secret clauses of the 
 Anglo-French Agreement of the previous year. They were 
 the real causes of the Moroccan crisis. The feeling between 
 Germany and ourselves became embittered, and the Press 
 campaign grew worse than ever. Had such papers as The 
 Times and the National Review desired war, they could hardly 
 have written more effectively to that end. And a speech 
 by Mr. Lee (now Lord Farnham) on February 2nd, on the 
 redistribution of our Navy, made matters worse. It was 
 less necessary, he said, to keep our eyes on France and the 
 Mediterranean than on a possible danger in the North Sea ; 
 and the hope expressed, that in case of danger the British 
 fleet would be ready to strike the first blow before the other 
 Power was aware that war was declared, caused such irrita- 
 tion in Germany that the speech had to be explained away 
 (Reventlow, 252, 285). In the following year Lord Edmund 
 Fitzmaurice, as Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, deemed 
 it prudent to disclaim all idea of such an attack on Germany 
 by sea as had been hinted at by Mr. Lee (ih. 296). And, 
 whilst apprehensions of an English invasion were thus 
 raised in Germany, the alarm of a German invasion of our 
 own shores was maintained at full pressure, in the interests 
 of an increased Navy. Nor did the scare suffer much 
 diminutipn from Mr. Balfour's declaration on March 7th 
 
118 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 that, in the opinion of the Defence Committee itself, no 
 invasion was possible in such force as could inflict on us a 
 fatal blow or threaten our independence. On the same 
 day on which this speech was made Sir John Fisher was 
 appointed First Sea Lord with sole responsibility for our 
 naval policy, and with his avowed policy of an immediate 
 destruction of the German Fleet. " Cease building, or I 
 strike," was his advice. But, if invasion was impossible, 
 the ground was cut away from his policy, which was very 
 widely held ; and that was perhaps the reason for Mr. 
 Balfour's repetition of his argument on May nth, in a speech 
 for which his own party never quite forgave him, when he 
 said that the Committee of Defence had consulted all the 
 experts about invasion, and that of these great experts 
 Lord Roberts himself did not think that less than 70,000 
 men could be employed on such a task, and that it would 
 be a forlorn hope for them to try to take London. 
 
 Meantime in home politics the Unionist Government, 
 under the benign leadership of Mr. Balfour, did little but 
 mark time. The Statute Book for this year was even 
 thinner than that for 1904, so small was the legislative 
 harvest. " The lamentable deficiency of Parliament as a 
 legislative machine " began to strike men's minds ; for 
 many measures approved of by all parties failed to reach 
 maturity, while the time wasted on them amounted to " a 
 legislative scandal." The urgent necessity for a reform of 
 Parliament itself to meet the needs of the time forced itself 
 on general observation (Ann. Reg., 1905, 203). 
 
 But political activity never slackened, and many lost 
 elections indicated the coming of a different Government. 
 In this situation the capture of the control of the future 
 policy of Liberalism became an object to strive for, and 
 accordingly Lord Rosebery was early in the field to make 
 it clear to all and sundry that, if he could help it, there 
 would be no question of Home Rule for Ireland. At the 
 City Liberal Club on March 9th he declared it impossible 
 for any Liberal Government to bring in any Home Rule 
 Bill without a previous appeal to the country ; whereupon 
 
MOROCCO DISTURBS EUROPE 119 
 
 Mr. Redmond, the Irish leader, bitterly attacked his lord- 
 ship, and made it plain that the Irish party would neither 
 support nor keep in office any Liberal Ministry formed on 
 Lord Rosebery's conditions. A few days later, at Esher, 
 Lord Rosebery repeated his declaration and expatiated on 
 the evil of a dual form of government : which drew from 
 Lord Morley the pertinent question whether, if duality of 
 government would prove a curse, our experience of unity 
 of government had ever proved a blessing. So the matter 
 remained undecided. But when, on November 13th, Sir 
 Henry Campbell-Bannerman, at Stirling, propounded the 
 idea of granting Home Rule by instalments, Lord Rosebery 
 again interposed, complaining that his rival had " hoisted 
 once more in its most pronounced form the flag of Irish 
 Home Rule," and refusing " emphatically, explicitly, and 
 once for all '* to fight under such a banner. 
 
 But if discord thus reigned in the Liberal camp, the 
 Unionist camp was not much happier. Division of opinion 
 on Tariff Reform caused an endless waste of ink and of 
 breath ; nor did anyone seem able to reconcile the Prime 
 Minister's views on this perplexing problem with those of 
 Mr. Chamberlain. There was no answer to Lord Spencer's 
 question whether Mr. Chamberlain in this matter was ** the 
 opponent, the rival, or the ally of the Prime Minister." 
 And the want of a definite answer was the main reason why 
 the end of the Government preceded the end of the year. 
 
 Notwithstanding the recent changes for the improvement 
 of our military system, our militarists remained dissatisfied. 
 Lord Roberts declared in the Lords on July loth that " our 
 armed forces as a body were as absolutely unfitted and 
 unprepared for war as in 1899 -1900." And three days 
 later the Secretary for War referred to Lord Roberts as 
 inspired by the idea that the only true remedy for our 
 military ills was conscription, opposed though he himself 
 was to it as unsuited to our needs. Clearly Mr Arnold 
 Foster did not recognize that fanciful distinction between 
 universal military training and universal military service 
 by which Lord Roberts hoped to make conscription palatable 
 
120 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 to the taste of the British people. But in any case there 
 were so many openings for war that there was abundant 
 reason for getting the guns ready. Macedonia still menaced 
 the peace of Europe, as Lord Lansdowne said on March 
 28th. King Edward's visit to Vienna in 1903 was thought 
 to be the first step to a more decided British intervention 
 in the matter, and in 1905 Turkish reforms in the Balkans 
 were made an affair of the six Great Powers, and not solely 
 of Austria and Russia. But the Porte remained obdurate 
 against all reforms, nor was it true that this obduracy was 
 due to German promptings ; for Germany used all her 
 influence at Constantinople to get the Miirzsteg reform 
 programme adopted {Paris Correspondent of the " Standard,'* 
 March nth). But the Sultan was slow to move ; even the 
 attempt to blow him up in July with a bomb failed of success ; 
 nor was it till November 22nd that the Porte yielded to 
 the importunate demands of the Powers, when they were 
 backed by the demonstration of an international fleet 
 sent to the Piraeus ; in which Germany, however, took 
 no part. 
 
 In all that happened this year Germany saw the finger of 
 King Edward intent on encircling Germany with a ring of 
 potential enemies. The separation of Norway from Sweden, 
 long desired by Norway, converted a united Scandinavia 
 friendly to Germany into two States, of which Sweden was 
 perceptibly weakened by the division, whilst Norway, with 
 its long Atlantic and North Sea coastline, was brought 
 entirely under British influence, and this was attributed 
 to King Edward ; the British Press losing no opportunity 
 of creating mistrust of Germany in Norway, on the suppo- 
 sition that the visit of the Kaiser and of German squadrons 
 to Norwegian harbours had in view the use of such harbours 
 in time of war (Reventlow, 294). 
 
 Baron Eckhardstein has said that " nothing could be 
 more mistaken " than the view that King Edward brought 
 about the encirclement of Germany by his " fanatical hatred 
 of Germany " (54). The King himself had favoured an 
 alliance in 1901, and he explained to Eckhardstein that the 
 
MOROCCO DISTURBS EUROPE 121 
 
 rapprochement with France and Russia was primarily a 
 measure for the cause of peace, though also a hint to Wilhelm 
 and Von Tirpitz not to go too far (60). So without any 
 fanatical hatred of Germany there was clearly in the French 
 entente an idea of a threat to her, which naturally confirmed 
 the fear of encirclement. 
 
 But it was the Moroccan problem which chiefly brought 
 the spectre of war within the horizon of men's fears or hopes. 
 When the Combes Ministry fell in France on January i8th 
 and was succeeded by that of M. Rouvier, M. Delcasse 
 remained Foreign Secretary. The idea of partitioning 
 Morocco between France and Spain was not an idea of 
 yesterday ; for a rumour of such a scheme had appeared in 
 the Standard of December 1903 (Schiemann, iii. 383) ; nor 
 was Count Boni de Castellane contradicted when he said 
 in the French Chamber on April 19, 1904, that M. Delcasse 
 had proposed such a scheme to the Sagasta Cabinet in Spain, 
 but, on Sagasta's dying in November 1902, had failed to 
 get the consent of the Silvelas Cabinet which followed, 
 and that thereupon he turned to England for assistance 
 {ib. V. 108). Now with Russia rendered powerless as an 
 ally by her war with Japan, and with England attached 
 to the fortunes of France by the Dual Entente, it seemed 
 possible to risk a forward move in Morocco. The French 
 mission to Morocco under St. Rene Taillandier went boldly 
 to work. Five points were submitted for acceptance to 
 the Sultan which threatened to reduce Morocco to the 
 position of Tunis, as a French possession from which other 
 interests than French would be excluded. It was thought 
 inconceivable that the Notables at Fez would suffer the 
 Sultan to accept proposals which would mean the end of 
 him and of his dynasty {Daily Telegraph, February 27th ; 
 Schiemann, v. 75). 
 
 A speech by the Kaiser at Bremen in March had a need- 
 lessly disconcerting effect on the world. He pledged himself 
 never to strive for " empty world-dominion," but forecast 
 a " world-wide dominion for the HohenzoUerns ... to be 
 founded upon conquests gained, not by the sword, but by 
 
122 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 the mutual confidence of nations which pressed towards 
 the same goal *' ; the time had come for increasing Germany's 
 Navy, her Army being large enough ; "every German warship 
 launched was one guarantee the more for peace on earth," 
 since a stronger Navy would make any alliance with Germany 
 more valuable, whilst it would make her adversaries less 
 ready to quarrel with her. After all, the Kaiser was not 
 singular in looking to increased armaments as the best 
 security of peace. The same thing was said ad nauseam 
 in England from a thousand platforms. But a speech by 
 the Kaiser, when he suddenly landed at Tangier on March 
 31st, caused immense disturbance. The violence of the 
 German Press in reference to the French mission to the 
 Sherifian Court reflected the rising excitement in Germany. 
 The moment seemed to the Chancellor one for decisive 
 action, if France and Germany were not to come to blows, 
 and therefore at his advice, not of his own initiative, the 
 Kaiser went to Tangier (Deutsche Politik, 102). The visit, 
 says Bethmann-Hollweg, " was undertaken much against 
 his own will, aud only under pressure from his political 
 advisers." The Kaiser was at Tangier for two hours ; he 
 expressed himself as resolved to uphold Germany's com- 
 mercial interests in Morocco, and to suffer no other Power 
 to intervene between himself and the Sultan of Morocco, 
 the free Sovereign of a free country. 
 
 But, if the Chancellor thought thus to avert a war, the 
 Tangier episode was not far from producing one. Both in 
 England and in France the Kaiser's remarks were taken as 
 a threat or a challenge ; and the very next day, April ist, 
 Count Lalaing, the Belgian Minister in London, reported 
 rumours of an intended exchange of naval visits between 
 the English and French Fleets as a demonstration against 
 Germany's action (Diplomatic Documents, 3). On the other 
 hand, M. Delcass^'s offer to resign his post of Foreign Minister, 
 though not accepted, indicated the effect of the incident 
 on the French Government. And it was thought in Germany 
 that it put a check on the crusade in England for the im- 
 mediate destruction of the German Fleet in order to forestall 
 
MOROCCO DISTURBS EUROPE 123 
 
 an invasion. Doubtless the bogey of an invasion had for 
 one motive the gaining of votes for the Unionist Govern- 
 ment at the fast approaching General Election ; as when 
 at Chichester Lord Edward Talbot predicted that the return 
 of a Liberal Government would almost certainly be followed 
 by a German invasion (Schiemann, v. 170). Otherwise it 
 seemed laughable in Germany for the powerful British 
 Fleet to fear an attack from so vastly an inferior fleet as 
 the German, or for the English people to let itself be persuaded 
 that for their future security an attack on the German 
 fleet was desirable {ib. v. 320). 
 
 On April 6th King Edward left London to join the Queen 
 at Marseilles for a yachting cruise in the Mediterranean. 
 After a night in Paris as the guest of President Loubet, 
 he left Marseilles on April 8th, and on the 29th he was back 
 in Paris. On May 3rd, after a morning at the Salon, he 
 lunched with the Marquis de Breteuil, there meeting his 
 diplomatic colleague, M. Delcasse, with whom he had a 
 long talk after lunch. Like the Kaiser, the King could do 
 nothing that was not of world-significance, and this luncheon 
 shook the nerves of Europe. M. Leghait, the Belgian 
 Minister at Paris, complained of his visiting Paris just then, 
 when the excitement over Tangier was still so great : doubt- 
 less the King wished to emphasize the solidarity of France 
 and England ; but he ** did not content himself with ex- 
 pressing his feelings and his views to M. Delcasse and other 
 French politicians ; he took care that the Court in Berlin 
 should know them also, and with this object in view he had 
 a long conversation with the German Ambassador after the 
 dinner at the Ely see ; and it seems that he spoke very clearly." 
 But, if the King's visit to Paris was in the nature of a political 
 demonstration, it hardly affected the situation ; for within 
 a few weeks, on June 9th, M. Delcasse resigned his office. 
 M. Rouvier openly reproached his Foreign Minister with 
 the dangerous nature of a diplomacy that had nearly brought 
 about a war, and after some hot words M. Delcasse again 
 tendered his resignation, which this time was accepted, 
 M. Rouvier becoming his own Foreign Minister, much to 
 
124 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 the easing of the situation. It was in reference to the King's 
 recent visit to Paris that at a dinner given to Mr. Choate, 
 the retiring American Ambassador, that gentleman eulogized 
 the King for his *' unceasing instinct for peace," *' his perfect 
 genius for conciliation " ; but the secret clauses of the agree- 
 ments of 1904 were great barriers to peace, nor of their 
 tenor can the King have been in ignorance. 
 
 On April 12th Count Biilow put the German case about 
 Morocco in dispatches to German Ambassadors abroad, in 
 view of statements in the French Press that called for cor- 
 rection. He denied that the Anglo-French entente of 1904 
 had ever been notified, either in writing or orally, as it should 
 have been, to the German Government ; its pubhcation in 
 a French official journal was not enough ; M. Delcasse had 
 given no definite information to the German Ambassador, 
 Prince Radohn, at Paris. But on this point it appeared 
 later that the French Minister had on March 23, 1904 com- 
 municated the chief points of the coming agreement to 
 the Prince, and sent a report of the conversation to the 
 French Ambassador at Berlin for the information of the 
 German Foreign Office (Hammann, 146). In that case the 
 diplomatic informaUty was less serious than represented by 
 the Chancellor. The latter continued that, as the status quo 
 was reserved in the treaty, Germany had not troubled, as 
 she assumed that, if France took any measures affecting 
 the rights of the signatory Powers to the Madrid Convention 
 of 1880, their consent would first be asked. Gradually 
 Germany had become alarmed, and her alarm increased 
 when she learnt that St. Rene Taillandier had openly declared 
 at Fez that he was acting as the mandatory of Europe, 
 and that French journalists quoted France's protectorate 
 over Tunis as a precedent for her treatment of Morocco. 
 As Germany desired no special privileges in the country, 
 nor a special treaty with it, a Conference of all the signatory 
 Powers seemed to her the best means of arriving at a 
 peaceable settlement which would protect the interests of 
 non-French countries from an exclusively French domination 
 {Reden, ii. 403-7). And the same idea of a Conference was 
 
MOROCCO DISTURBS EUROPE 125 
 
 proposed in the French Chamber on April 28th by Count 
 Leferronays (Schiemann, v. iii). 
 
 The Chancellor mistrusted M. Delcasse. The latter's 
 disclaimer of having ordered Taillandier to declare himself 
 the mandatory of Europe seemed to conflict with Taillandier's 
 own pronouncement ; and this pronouncement had been 
 confirmed from many other sources and from the Moroccan 
 Sultan himself " with great decisiveness." According to 
 Count Tattenbach, the German representative at Fez, the 
 Frenchman had said on his arrival that France would regard 
 any communication to foreign Powers of Morocco's proposed 
 reforms as an infringement of French interests, since no other 
 Power but France had any right to interfere with Moroccan 
 affairs. Count Biilow described this Delcassan poHcy as "of 
 a stormy character/' and he hoped that M. Rouvier would 
 disapprove of it (Reden, ii. 408, May 22nd). And this came 
 to pass ; the idea of a Conference growing in favour, despite 
 M. Delcasse's opposition. At the beginning of June the 
 Moroccan Government, possibly under German instigation, 
 invited the signatories of the Madrid Convention to a Con- 
 ference at Tangier for the discussion of the needed reforms. 
 Germany promptly accepted the invitation, but the Chancellor 
 refused to assent to Rouvier's suggestion of a preHminary 
 discussion of the reforms contemplated. He desired an 
 admission from France that reforms affecting the police 
 and finances of Morocco should be regarded as an international 
 concern, not as a purely French one ; and that for trade 
 the principle of the " open door '* should be recognized ; but 
 in other respects he undertook that Germany would do her 
 best in support of France's wishes. When asked by Rouvier 
 to define the word " international," he defined it, as regarded 
 finance, as a National Bank controlled by representatives 
 of the different Powers, and not solely by a French banking 
 group ; as regarded police, as restriction of French control 
 to districts near the Algerian frontier, leaving remoter 
 districts, as on the Atlantic coasts, to the several Powers 
 (ib. ii. 412, June 15th). 
 
 Delcasse's resignation on June 9th was due to his failure 
 
126 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 to obtain the. support of his colleagues to oppose the meeting 
 of this Conference. But about his resignation there is some 
 conflict of evidence. Professor Schiemann cites interviews 
 in the Matin and Gaulois as indicating the absence of any 
 German pressure in the matter ; the resignation was due 
 to Rouvier, who at the last hour intervened to stave off the 
 danger of war, and who acted entirely of his own accord ; 
 " no German statesman would have allowed himself such 
 an intervention in the internal affairs of another Power " (v. 
 295, 383). Dr. Dillon's account somewhat differs : Delcass6 
 *' was removed by his own colleagues congruously with 
 the demand made by the German emissary, Henckel von 
 Donnersmarck, who visited Paris for that purpose *' ; and 
 Prince Radohn is said to have reminded Rouvier on June 
 13th that, failing the Conference, *' Germany with all its 
 forces was at the back of Morocco " (Eclipse of Russia, 400). 
 On the same day on which Delcass^ resigned Count Biilow 
 was made a Prince. Hope arose even in Berlin of a rap- 
 prochement between Germany and France ; and the Kaiser 
 showed much civility to certain French officers who repre- 
 sented France at the wedding of the Crown Prince. Between 
 the French Premier and the German Ambassador, Prince 
 Radolin, there was much correspondence and discussion 
 concerning an agreement between their respective countries 
 {Ann. Reg., 1905, 265). But for some days the question 
 of a Conference remained unsettled. The EngUsh war 
 Press was strong on the side of Delcass^, and the Govern- 
 ment on June 15th was all for refusal, but subject to France's 
 also refusing {ib. 173). Happily M. Rouvier worked amicably 
 with Prince Biilow, as he wished for an accommodation with 
 Germany ; but it was not till July loth that he was able 
 to announce in the French Chamber that an agreement for 
 a Conference had been reached, of which the terms were 
 to be the sovereignty and independence of the Sultan, the 
 integrity of the Moroccan Empire, and equality of trade 
 between all nations. And on July 12th it was announced 
 that Great Britain also would attend the Conference. So 
 far all seemed well ; but another ten weeks were to elapse 
 
MOROCCO DISTURBS EUROPE 127 
 
 before the bases of the Conference were settled. The credit 
 of their settlement is claimed by the Russian Minister, 
 Count Witte, who, returning to Paris from the peace with 
 Japan signed at Portsmouth (U.S.A.) on September 5th 
 and subsequently visiting the Kaiser at his castle at Rominten 
 on September 26th, succeeded in reconciling the French and 
 German Governments ; Rouvier having explained that, unless 
 he did so, there could be no question of floating a Russian 
 loan in France (Memoirs, 416-21). When the Count asked 
 the Kaiser to do a favour to the French, '* he accorded it 
 with the best grace in the world. And I obtained from him 
 the concession about the Alge9iras Conference which Rouvier 
 had so often asked for in vain. In this way war was averted " 
 (Dillon's Eclipse of Russia, 396). But it was not till October 
 28th that the Sultan of Morocco agreed to the terms of the 
 Conference. Count Witte's story confirms Bethmann-Holl- 
 weg's statement, that the Kaiser's " personal influence was 
 strongly exerted for a settlement of the Morocco crisis of 
 1905," and it justifies Lord Haldane's beUef that the Kaiser 
 *' most genuinely desired to keep the peace " (Before the 
 War, 99). 
 
 But were others equally desirous of peace ? Considerable 
 sensation was caused when the Matin, on October 6th, 7th, 
 and 8th, published certain articles to the effect that at the 
 Council which ended in his resignation M. Delcasse stated 
 that England had promised to protect France under all 
 circumstances, by mobilizing her fleet, by seizing the Kiel 
 Canal, and by landing 100,000 men in Schleswig-Holstein. 
 The tale was never very definitely denied, and the latest 
 French version of the episode is of much interest. It is 
 to the effect that M. Paul Cambon, the French Ambassador 
 in London, succeeded in getting Lord Lansdowne to promise 
 to consider the broad lines of a closer attachment on our 
 side to France as against Germany. Proposals going farther 
 than anything involved in the entente of 1904 must have 
 been made, for Germany threatened France with a declara- 
 tion of war if the British proposals were accepted ; where- 
 upon M. Rouvier insisted on their rejection as preferable to 
 
128 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 a war, and this led to Delcass^'s resignation. Such is the 
 story told by M. Andr6 Mevil in the Echo de Paris of March 
 28, 1922 ; and it shows how far the Unionist Government 
 of that day was prepared to go in an apparently uncon- 
 ditional military support of France in any fresh Franco- 
 German war, and how very near we came to a war with 
 Germany in the year 1905. But Count Reventlow cites 
 no authority for his statement that a promise of such miUtary 
 aid to France was made on the personal initiative of King 
 Edward (279), though of course the King and his Foreign 
 Minister were virtually one. 
 
 But the episode, taken as a whole, was so far a signal 
 triumph for German diplomacy, nor did Prince Bulow fail 
 in giving just credit to France, especially to M. Rouvier, 
 for their conciliatory attitude during this stormy passage. 
 In an interview with the French editor of the Petit Parisian 
 on October 3rd the Chancellor defended Germany's inter- 
 vention at a time when France showed not only a wish to 
 isolate Germany but to injure her, although for some time. 
 past her desire for better relations with France had been 
 manifested ; the French Premier had judged the dispute 
 from the higher point of view, having honestly co-operated 
 to ease the tension between the two countries. The 
 Chancellor disclaimed any justification for the mistrust 
 that had existed between them, and said truly that it rested 
 with the Press of both countries to create such feehngs of 
 mutual trust as were honestly wished for by both the French 
 and the German Governments. The future might be faced 
 calmly and joyfully, if only certain Germans and certain 
 Frenchmen would cease to regard themselves as of necessity 
 traditional enemies, and would reahze how fruitful for good 
 would be a real and perfect peace between the two nations 
 {Reden, ii. 421-2). 
 
 The interchange of great naval courtesies between the 
 French and EngHsh Fleets, as anticipated on April ist, duly 
 took place, and were an exhilarating feature of the summer, 
 besides being an indication to Germany of the cordiahty of 
 the reinforced harmony between England and France. The 
 
MOROCCO DISTURBS EUROPE 129 
 
 British Atlantic Fleet was entertained at Brest in mid- July, 
 our officers being entertained at lunch by the French President 
 at Paris and by the French Premier on July 14th and i6th 
 respectively. Nor ever was the French genius for hospitality 
 more brightly manifested. And their courtesy was recipro- 
 cated the following month by our Government, when on 
 August 7th the French Channel Squadron arrived at Cowes, 
 and the King welcomed Admiral Caillard and his admirals 
 and captains on the royal yacht, and gave a dinner to the 
 principal officers, followed by fireworks and an illumination 
 of both fleets. Next day, August 8th, the King reviewed 
 the squadrons of both nations at Portsmouth, and lunched 
 with Admiral Caillard on board the Massena. And then 
 on August loth the French Admiral and 80 of his officers 
 lunched at the Guildhall. The festivities ended on August 
 I2th, when Admiral Caillard and 130 of his officers were 
 entertained at luncheon in Westminster Hall by 220 members 
 of the two Houses of Parhament, after which there was 
 a procession of carriages, and in the presence of a huge 
 crowd Admiral Caillard and all his officers stood up and 
 saluted the statue of Nelson in Trafalgar Square (Redesdale, 
 ii. 764). The speeches at Westminster laid stress on the 
 pacific and non-aggressive nature of the Anglo-French 
 friendship ; Mr. Balfour struck a right note in declaring 
 that the time was past when a friendship between two great 
 nations indicated any danger to a third, and that our union 
 with France was a pledge of peace — of peace in the East, 
 of peace in the West, and of peace in the whole world. But 
 unfortunately it was not so, for the whole episode only 
 increased the irritation of the third Power in question, and 
 Germany felt herself, as it were, excluded from the feast 
 of harmony. Mr. Kitchen, the contemporary EngHsh 
 chronicler, thus wrote of the situation : " Parallel with the 
 interchange of manifestations of cordial feehng and confi- 
 dence between Great Britain and France there went on, 
 unfortunately, a considerable amount of exhibition of distrust 
 and irritation between Great Britain and Germany " (Ann. 
 Reg., 1905, 210). 
 
 9 
 
ISO ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 Hence these naval civilities, resulting probably from 
 the April interviews between King Edward and President 
 Loubet, did but little for the pacification of Europe. For 
 Germany took the exhibition of the combined naval strength 
 of the Entente as a menace or warning {Schiemann, v. 213) ; 
 as was shown, not only in Press recriminations, but in such 
 speeches as were made by Bassermann, the National Liberal 
 leader, at Essen in September. English menaces, he said, 
 would not prevent Germany from building the strong fleet 
 she required, nor would the impudent speeches of English 
 admirals or diplomatists have any effect. Peace would 
 be secured by Germany's possessing so strong a fleet that 
 England would hesitate before attacking it ; Germany had 
 no desire for a war with England, but only for a pacific 
 development of her foreign commerce ; the ships she built 
 were instruments of peace. Professor Schiemann put the 
 case in the same way : Germany, in face of the general 
 enmity to her, could not let her arms rust, and to-day she 
 knew her power, " but certainly we seek for no war, and 
 it seems to us almost laughable to have to say so *' (v. 172). 
 
 In this feverish atmosphere it added much to the dis- 
 quiet of the time that no one knew the purport of the meeting 
 on July 24th between the Kaiser and the Czar at Bjorkoe 
 on the Gulf of Finland, following closely on the Brest 
 demonstration. The Kaiser heard that the news of this 
 meeting threw all the people in England and the English 
 Press " into the state of wildest excitement " (Letter 60). 
 In vain King Edward tried to discover the meaning of it. 
 The Kaiser, adopting the Czar's own description of his 
 uncle as " the arch-intriguer and mischief-maker " in Europe, 
 writes on September 22nd of the King as complaining at 
 Cowes to a German gentleman, sent expressly by the Kaiser 
 to observe the working of the entente cordiale, of his 
 inability to find out anything : 
 
 " I can't find out what had been going on at Bjorkoe ! 
 BenckendorfE knows nothing— /or he always tells me every- 
 thing ; Copenhagen knows nothing, and even the Emperor's 
 mother — who always lets me know everything — has heard 
 
MOROCCO DISTURBS EUROPE 181 
 
 nothing from her son this time ; even LamsdorfE — who is 
 such a nice man and lets me know all I want to hear — knows 
 nothing, or at least won't tell ! It is very disagreeable ! '* 
 And, if Eckhardstein is right, it was on hearing of the Bjorkoe 
 treaty between Wilhelm II and Nicholas II, that the King 
 *' embarked definitely on encirclement '* : the very policy 
 which Eckhardstein himself had previously declared to be 
 a German illusion (54, 60). 
 
 This inteUigence showed, the Kaiser thought, how very 
 wide was the net of secret information that his uncle was 
 casting over Europe and over the Czar ; but it was a game 
 in which all the Powers were equally engaged. And now 
 we know at what the Kaiser and the Czar were playing. 
 The secret treaty between them, which had been meditated 
 in 1904, was signed on July 24th, without the knowledge 
 or presence of their respective Foreign Ministers, the pith 
 of which treaty was contained in the first of its four clauses, 
 to the effect that either Empire should give the other the 
 aid of all its mihtary and naval forces in the event of an 
 attack upon it by any third European State (see text in 
 Dillon's Eclipse of Russia, 412, or in Isvolsky's Memoirs, 
 translated, 54). 
 
 It seemed from this that in a new Franco-German war 
 Russia would be bound to fight against France, her own 
 ally ; and in this sense the treaty was interpreted by Count 
 Lamsdorff, the Russian Foreign Minister, and by Count 
 Witte, Secretary of State, to their great vexation and 
 embarrassment. But Article 4 of the treaty expressly 
 stipulated that it could only come into force after its terms 
 had been communciated to France, and France had been 
 invited to join as an ally ; and this was an impossible con- 
 tingency, for how could France have alHed herself with 
 two Powers whose agreement presupposed a joint attack 
 upon her? (Isvolsky, 60). In any case the inconsistency of 
 the treaty with the existing one with France was represented 
 to the Czar, and though the Kaiser contended that the 
 two treaties could not collide so long as the Franco-Russian 
 alliance was not directed against Germany, Count Lamsdorff 
 
132 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 eventually succeeded in prevailing on the German Foreign 
 Office to annul the secret treaty, to the great annoyance 
 of the Kaiser {Dillon, 364 ; Isvolsky, 66). 
 
 But though the Kaiser's scheme thus failed of result, 
 his aim was undoubtedly the avoidance of war. He had 
 long nursed the idea of a League of Federation of the States 
 of Europe for the preservation of the world's peace. " I 
 want," he once said to Count Witte, '* to do away with wars 
 between European States, and I think I see my way " 
 (Dillon, 343). He thought that by such an association of 
 States the European State system might count on a life 
 of thousands of years, whereas, if we went on snarling and 
 biting as at present, nothing could arrest the process of decay, 
 and Europe would die as Egypt and Assyria and Rome had 
 died in the past. No one ever put the case for a League of 
 Nations against militarism better than this supposed prince 
 of mihtarists : " What we are aiming at is the estabUsh- 
 ment of a poHtical syndicate which is to harness all the social 
 and political forces of the old Continent, and to use them 
 to keep the machine of general government moving for 
 the welfare of all, while leaving room enough for the play 
 of divergent forces and the pursuit of divergent interests '* 
 (ib. 396). 
 
 As tending to this end the Kaiser thought highly of his 
 secret treaty, writing thus to Nicholas II on July 27th : 
 " The 24th of July is a cornerstone in European pohtics 
 and turns over a new leaf in the history of the world ; which 
 will be a chapter of peace and goodwill among the Great 
 Powers of the European Continent, respecting each other in 
 friendship, confidence, and in pursuing the general pohcy 
 on the lines of a community of interests " (Letter 48). This 
 was to be effected by a union of the Dual AUiance (France 
 and Russia) with the Triple Alliance, thus forming a Quintuple 
 AUiance, to which the smaller nations, hke Holland, Belgium, 
 Denmark, Sweden and Norway, would be drawn in, and 
 perhaps ultimately also Japan ; and this would " cool down 
 EngUsh self-assertion and impertinence," as Japan too was 
 England's ally. In this manner " all unruly neighbours " 
 
MOROCCO DISTURBS EUROPE 188 
 
 might be kept in order, and " peace be imposed even by 
 force, if there should be a Power hair-brained enough to 
 wish to disturb it." The Kaiser dreamt of a great " Con- 
 tinental Combine," to counteract the disturbance of the 
 poUtical balance by the recently renewed treaty between 
 England and Japan. This Combine was " the only manner 
 to effectively block the way to the whole world becoming 
 John Bull's property, which he exploits to his heart's content, 
 after having, by lies and intrigues without end, set the 
 rest of the civiHzed nations by each other's ears for his own 
 personal benefit " (Letter 51, September 26, 1905). It was 
 unfortunate both for the Kaiser's own hopes of peace and 
 for the world's welfare that he held these views about the 
 country of his uncle. But each, in fact, had come to regard 
 the country of the other as the chief menace to the peace 
 of the world ; and herein lay the great danger of the time. 
 Clearly, then, the idea both of the Kaiser and of the 
 Czar at this juncture was to isolate England by a ring of 
 alliances corresponding precisely to the English idea of 
 isolating Germany by the same method ; and equally clearly 
 the feelings of Nicholas II towards King Edward tallied 
 with those of Wilhelm II. But at this very time came a 
 bid from our side for an alliance with Russia. It came in 
 the form of a projected agreement between England and 
 Russia presented to Count Witte at Paris after his return 
 from Portsmouth (U.S.A.), and purporting to have the 
 approval of the King and of our Foreign Office. An invitation 
 to the Count to visit King Edward in London had to be 
 refused owing to a failure to obtain the Czar's permission. 
 The proposals concerned agreements touching the East, 
 Thibet, Persia, and Afghanistan ; but the Count (as he 
 shortly became), from fear that an agreement with England 
 would provoke the jealousy of Germany, rejected it, and 
 it was his opposition which postponed any such agreement 
 till 1907 (Isvolsky, 433). When asked his opinion, the 
 Count replied that, whilst the provisions did credit to " their 
 illustrious author," " he was opposed to alliances," though 
 not to a close working understanding with England : " No 
 
184 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 political partnerships. I cannot second any effort to bring 
 them about. On principle I will discountenance them all." 
 '* The alHance with France was a necessity, and for the time 
 being no other alliance is." *' When King Edward received 
 this answer he misunderstood it, as the Count feared that 
 he would. He did not believe in my friendly sentiments 
 towards his country " (Dillon, 350-3). It is clear from this 
 story that an entente with Russia was already part of the 
 King's policy against Germany. 
 
 But however opposed to alliances in general Count 
 Witte may have been, he seems to have been strong for the 
 Kaiser's scheme of an alliance between Russia and Germany 
 and France, and he was convinced of his ability to bring 
 this about if appointed Ambassador to Paris. But there 
 was flagrant disagreement in Russia as to her wisest foreign 
 poHcy, and Alexander Isvolsky, Russian Ambassador to 
 Copenhagen from 1903 to 1906, and Russian Foreign Minister 
 from May 1905 to 1910, was the soul of the party that 
 strove for the opposite combination between Russia and 
 France and England. He was among the chief founders 
 of this Triple Entente. He tells us that it was during one 
 of King Edward's visits to Copenhagen that he availed 
 himself of the opportunity, in long interviews with the 
 King, of estabhshing the bases of the agreement of 1907 
 between England and Russia (Memoirs, 19, 20). It was 
 mainly the opposition of Count Witte to their anti- 
 German pohcy that postponed for two years our more 
 definite commitment to the ambitions of Russia's foreign 
 policy. 
 
 It followed from these intrigues of barely concealed 
 hostility that the personal relations between King Edward 
 and his nephew grew steadily worse. On August 22nd 
 the Kaiser was displeased with his uncle for omitting to 
 visit him on the way to Ischl, after letting his Press first 
 launch the idea of such a visit, and then suddenly declaring 
 that the German Foreign Office had started it : " the finest 
 lie I ever came across," he wrote. The fact, or the story, 
 was that, when the King had arrived at Marienbad, a 
 
MOROCCO DISTURBS EUROPE 185 
 
 dispatch was published by Lord Knollys, his secretary and 
 companion, to say that on his way to Marienbad the King 
 had neither wished for any conversation with his nephew 
 nor had any intention of having such ; and this was taken 
 in Germany, not only as an act of discourtesy, but as a 
 poHtical demonstration for the satisfaction of France. From 
 this time forward the King was thought to show less desire 
 to conceal his anti-German bias or his personal antagonism 
 to the Kaiser (Reventlow, 277). 
 
 The projected visit of the British Fleet for manoeuvres 
 in the Baltic, the first such visit since the Crimean War, was 
 ascribed by Count Reventlow to the personal initiative of 
 the King (ib. 277). Some alarm was manifested in Germany, 
 and two unimportant newspapers suggested that the riverain 
 States should prohibit foreign fleets from entering the Baltic. 
 Professor Schiemann deprecated such alarm as laughable 
 (v. 230, August 2nd), as did also the Kolnische Zeitung of 
 July 30th ; but the excitement shown by the English Press 
 struck the Belgian Charge d' Affaires at Berlin as " scarcely 
 comprehensible." The Kaiser, on the other hand, rejoiced 
 at the approaching visit as affording a good object-lesson 
 to his own people on the necessity of that strong German 
 Fleet which he so ardently desired to have. On August 24th 
 he wrote : "I have ordered my fleet to shadow the British, 
 and when they have anchored, to lay themselves near the 
 British Fleet, to give them a dinner and make them as drunk 
 as possible, to find out what they are about, and then sail 
 off again." But the cruise passed off without any unpleasant- 
 ness. The Kaiser ordered the first and second German 
 squadrons to interrupt their manoeuvres in order to greet 
 the British ships, and a banquet was given on August 28th, 
 at which Admiral Wilson warmly thanked the. Kaiser for 
 the graceful compHment with which he had honoured King 
 Edward. Nor could anything have exceeded the friendly 
 hospitality which the municipalities of the German ports 
 extended to the British sailors. On September 26th the 
 Kaiser was able to write that the visit of the British Fleet 
 at Swinemiinde and Danzig had gone off " without colHsion," 
 
186 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 and that the German public, if not enthusiastic, had behaved 
 civilly and hospitably (Letter 51). 
 
 The Kaiser's hope of detaching Japan from the English 
 connection was a remote one ; for this year saw the link 
 still further tightened. On June 27th the Japanese Prince 
 and Princess Arisugava were entertained at a garden party 
 given in their honour at the Royal Botanical Gardens, and 
 the Prince was made a Grand Commander of the Bath. 
 When they left England on July nth the Prince, in a farewell 
 speech, grew emotional on the warmth of feeling that con- 
 nected England with Japan. This warmth of feeling was 
 shown in the new treaty signed on August 12th, and made 
 public on September 27th. It was an extension of the treaty 
 of 1902, in that it obliged either ally to assist the othei if 
 attacked, and to make war in common. It was to last for 
 ten years, and its objects were declared to be the defence of 
 the special interests of each country in East Asia and India, 
 the maintenance of peace in those regions, of the independence 
 and integrity of China, and of the principle of the " open 
 door " for trade. But as Russia's defeat by Japan had made 
 such a treaty with Japan needless as a defence against 
 Russia, Lord Lansdowne could say with obvious truth that 
 the treaty was not directed against Russia ; from which 
 it was argued in Germany that, if not directed against 
 Russia, it could only be directed against herself (Belgian 
 Diplomatic Documents, No. 9, September 30th). But Prince 
 Billow took the treaty with his wise and habitual coolness. 
 Its wording was in nowise contrary to German interests : 
 ** We have in East China never striven for anything but 
 the * open door* for our commerce . . . and therefore for 
 peace in China, and for her integrity and independence " 
 (Reden, i. 253). And Russia persisted in her resentment 
 in spite of Sir Charles Hardinge's assurances of the purely 
 defensive and pacific intentions of the treaty. Count Lams- 
 dorff only replied that no one with whom he had discussed 
 the matter, least of all the Czar, " doubted for one moment 
 that it was directed against Russia." So Lord Lansdowne, 
 on November 6th, at the Junior Constitutional Club, repeated 
 
MOROCCO DISTURBS EUROPE 187 
 
 the defence of the treaty as being purely pacific in purpose 
 and as free from any secret clauses (such as he knew there 
 were in our entente with France). The time, he said, had 
 passed for regarding alliances as entanglements or for a policy 
 of isolation (such as Gladstone had pursued), and he repu- 
 diated the idea that the entente between Great Britain and 
 France meant estrangement with any other Power or Powers. 
 On the Foreign Office vote on August 9th Lord Lansdowne's 
 foreign policy was approved of, and the probability was 
 unfortunately indicated that, in the event of a Liberal 
 Government following the Unionist, there would be no 
 departure from the Imperialist line of its predecessor. The 
 way was thus prepared for the succession of Sir E. Grey 
 to Lord Lansdowne, the people having no voice at all in 
 such matters. 
 
 Meanwhile Germany complained of continual baiting 
 (Verhetzungen) by the British Press. Growing hostility 
 towards Germany explained our growing friendship for 
 Russia. Baron Greindl, Belgian Minister at Berlin, thus 
 wrote on September 30th : " The general tone of the Press 
 campaign carried on in England shows that an understanding 
 with Russia is not desired there because it might improve 
 the political situation, but solely out of hostility towards 
 Germany. It is to be feared that the King of England shares 
 this feeling. Recently I had the honour of writing to you 
 that his relations with the Emperor were anything but 
 friendly. I have now heard from a reliable source that His 
 Majesty a short time ago expressed views in the course of 
 a private conversation which form an absolute contrast 
 to the peaceful sentiments hitherto attributed to him." 
 
 The Pan-Germans, like the Chauvinists of other countries, 
 continued to say and write many foolish things ; but the 
 scare of invasion in England had other causes. The German 
 Government disclaimed all sympathy with the extravagant 
 aims of the Pan-Germans ; as when the Secretary for the 
 Navy protested against the identification of the Govern- 
 ment with the programme of the Navy League, or when in 
 May the Kaiser, in disapproval of its Chauvinist utterances, 
 
188 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 sent a telegram to its President so strongly worded as to 
 cause General Menges and General Keim to retire from the 
 Presidential Board (Ann. Reg., 1905, 286). But the Kaiser 
 continued to be the target of endless false legends ; to the 
 St. Petersburg correspondent of the Journal des Dehats was 
 attributed the authorship of three of such legends : as that 
 eight years earlier he had promised Nicholas II his aid 
 against any enemy, and then left him in the lurch with Japan ; 
 that he had induced Russia to occupy Manchuria and Port 
 Arthur ; and that he had been the author of the Boer War 
 (Schiemann, v. 234). And among these legends was one 
 to the effect that at the end of 1904 Germany had been on 
 the point of declaring war against England and for this 
 purpose had mobilized her fleet, owing to a conflict between 
 the Kaiser and King Edward. Prince Biilow attributed 
 this story to the Socicdist paper Vorwdrts of August 12th, 
 1905, but he declared it untrue that Germany had ever 
 acted with aggressive plans against us ; untrue that she 
 had ever been on the point of declaring war upon us ; 
 untrue that she had mobilized her fleet against us ; 
 untrue that Germany had irritated or provoked us. Above 
 all, he deprecated the attempt made to represent the Kaiser 
 as a disturber of the peace, who for the last eighteen years 
 had given so many proofs of his love for it (Reden, ii. 278, 
 December 14, 1905). 
 
 But it really seemed at the beginning of October as if 
 the dove of peace was about to descend upon our agitated 
 globe. In Germany it was fondly imagined that the agree- 
 ment about the Moroccan Conference had put a new face 
 on things ; that it had shipwrecked the policy of the National 
 Review, and shattered beyond recovery the hope of an Anglo- 
 French-Russian combination against Germany (Schiemann, 
 V. 278). Comfort also was derived from Lord Percy's dis- 
 claimer on August 9th of the Fisherian policy of destroying 
 the German Fleet before it grew stronger, and from similar 
 voices raised in our Press, though in this same month the 
 Morning Post fell into line with the National Review, which 
 bad adopted the Pan-German scare as its special province 
 
MOROCCO DISTURBS EUROPE 189 
 
 {ib. V. 253). Accordingly, in an interview with the editor 
 of the Temps on October 3rd, the German Chancellor indulged 
 in hopeful anticipations of the future. He regarded the 
 agreement about the Conference as a happy thing for both 
 France and Germany ; he thought it would do more to 
 unite than to separate them, and he hoped that the good 
 understanding thus established would continue at and after 
 the Conference ; but the French people must be got to 
 understand that the time was past for their policy of seeking 
 to isolate Germany (Reden, ii. 423). 
 
 Relations between France and Germany thus reached 
 their highest water-mark, thanks to their skilful handling 
 by M. Rouvier on the one hand and by Prince Biilow on 
 the other. The speech by the former before the Chamber 
 on December i6th put the whole matter in a reasonable 
 light : for sixty years the French colony of Algeria, with 
 its 700,000 white colonists in the midst of six million natives, 
 had been exposed to much trouble from the disorders of 
 Morocco. Rebel refugees had trespassed over the frontiers, 
 not only in bands of marauders, but in hordes of several 
 thousands, and France's necessity of ending this anarchy 
 was generally recognized. Then Germany intervened, claim- 
 ing not only to be informed of the measures proposed, but 
 to be consulted about them, and this had brought about 
 the approaching Conference. In a spirit of compromise 
 France had agreed ; but in her proposals to the Sultan there 
 was nothing analogous to the system of government in 
 Tunis, nor was there any claim of a mandate from Europe. 
 At the Conference the rights of each Power in Morocco 
 would not be contested ; each Power would have the benefit 
 of its separate treaties with Morocco ; the interest of each 
 Power would be respected. But the special rights and 
 interests of France as a Mussalman Power in North Africa 
 would be upheld, though such rights of France injured 
 those of no other Power, and indeed guaranteed their 
 preservation. 
 
 In his interview of October 3rd with the editor of the 
 Temps, Prince Biilow touched on some points which threw 
 
140 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 light on the position of politics at the close of 1905. He 
 dismissed as ungrounded the French apprehension of 
 Germany's drawing France into an anti-English policy, 
 using as a lever Germany's rapprochement with Russia. 
 Friendship between Germany and Russia was natural and 
 traditional : such a friendship should be as inoffensive to 
 France as that of France and Russia was to Germany. A 
 double system of alliances best secured the balance of 
 Europe, with freedom of outside friendships for its members, 
 as of France with Italy or of Germany with Russia. With 
 France there was no point in Africa or Asia where her 
 colonial interests conflicted with those of Germany, and so 
 long as French colonial policy respected Germany's growing 
 commercial interests and honour, not only would Germany 
 not stand in France's way, but she would support her in 
 case of need both in Morocco and elsewhere. As to England, 
 some people talked of an Anglo-German war as inevitable, 
 but it was silliness to talk of any war as inevitable. The 
 mutual injury the two countries would inflict on one another 
 would restrain them from any such attempt. And despite 
 the violent Press polemic in either country and the public 
 nervousness, the Governments in London and Berlin were 
 too conscious of their responsibility to be influenced by them. 
 The prejudices of the two countries would disappear by 
 degrees, and France, whose own case showed the possibility 
 of friendship with England, might help towards their 
 removal (ih. ii. 424). Finally, there was nothing German 
 public opinion would welcome more than confidence between 
 Germany and France, as soon as it was assured that there 
 was no longer any thought in Paris of isolating Germany. 
 But unhappily that thought was far from extinct ; and 
 before the month was out the Belgian Minister at Paris 
 (October 24th) thought that economic and commercial 
 rivalries might cause war to break out at any time. At a 
 gala dinner on October 26th, after the unveiling at Berlin 
 of a statue to Count Moltke, the Kaiser, in allusion to the 
 position of Germany, exclaimed in a toast to her future and 
 her present, " Let our powder be dry, our swords sharp, 
 
MOROCCO DISTURBS EUROPE 141 
 
 our aim clear, our strength intact '* ; and great irritation 
 was produced by so natural a recognition of the facts of the 
 time. On November 8th Professor Schiemann wrote : 
 ** The system of Delcasse works further, and the dangers 
 connected with it can in nowise be regarded as cleared 
 away " (v. 334). English diplomacy was still strong for 
 his policy, and the Kaiser believed its first object to be the 
 isolation of Germany. And if the Kaiser's speech had 
 been irritating to us, no less so to Germany were the speeches 
 of Lord Lansdowne at the Constitutional Club, and of Mr. 
 Balfour at the Mansion House, with their veiled allusions 
 to Germany as dangerous to the peace of the world. Lord 
 Lansdowne played to the gallery by remarking on the 
 hindrances met by us in various parts of the world by certain 
 rivalries which could profit no one unless perhaps some wily 
 potentate who knew how to profit by them ; Mr. Balfour, 
 by expressing his disbelief of any future war unless it were 
 caused by nations or potentates who tried to realize their 
 dreams of national expansion by treading the rights of their 
 neighbours underfoot [Belgian Diplomatic Documents, No. 13). 
 The Chancellor had to regret that Germany had to 
 reckon with a deep antipathy (Abneigung) in English opinion 
 for his country, but he welcomed recent endeavours in 
 serious English circles to resist this dangerous tendency ; 
 for the relations of Governments, however mutually pacific, 
 did not exhaust the policy of countries, and the time had 
 come when, as Moltke had anticipated, the chief danger 
 came from the passions of populations rather than from 
 their Cabinets {Reden, ii. 251). The frequent recurrence 
 of this idea by the Chancellor shows how sensible he was 
 of this great fundamental truth of modern politics, that 
 the peace of the world lies at the mercy of popular emotions 
 easily whipped up to a state of white heat by the daily 
 newspaper for financial or political purposes : a danger 
 which exists no less under democratic Governments than it 
 does under Kings. Never was this fact more obvious than 
 in 1905. Baron Richthofen, the German Foreign Minister, 
 whilst acquitting the Balfour Government of any precon- 
 
142 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 ceived plan for a breach with Germany, attributed its attitude 
 to ** excessive flexibility to the demands of a certain section 
 of the Press," which the Cabinet found itself incapable of 
 controlling (Belgian Diplomatic Documents, No. 14). To 
 avert the evil consequences likely to arise from the situation 
 thus brought about, the Anglo-German Friendship Com- 
 mittee was founded in November by Lord Avebury, Lord 
 Courtney, and other pacifists ; and their laudable efforts 
 for peace and goodwill met with a hearty response from a 
 meeting held in Berlin on December 20th, which declared 
 that the artificially created antagonism between the two 
 nations had taken no root in Germany, and that Germany 
 was ever ready to take and hold the proferred hand of 
 friendship (Schiemann, v. 381). But all such pacifist efforts 
 were puny and futile against the wild and swollen forces of 
 Imperialism and Chauvinism triumphantly created by the 
 Press, and rampant over the world. 
 
 Accordingly, when the new Liberal Cabinet was being 
 constructed in November by Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, 
 in anticipation of Mr. Balfour's tardy resignation of office 
 on December 4th, the admission of four Vice-Presidents of 
 the Liberal League into the Ministry indicated the unlikeli- 
 hood of much modification of Imperialism in the foreign 
 counsels of the nation. In the natural order of promotion 
 Sir E. Grey was substituted for Lord Lansdowne at the 
 Foreign Office, but to many it seemed but the change of 
 one pea for another ; nor was it likely that our anti-German 
 policy would have been allowed to suffer by a surrender of 
 the Foreign Office to a Liberal of Gladstonian ideas. Sir 
 Edward, the story goes, refused at first to join the new 
 Cabinet unless Sir Henry went to the Lords, and only with 
 drew his objection on condition that he should have absor 
 lutely his own way in foreign affairs (Blunt' s Diaries, ii. 21O;. 
 It was a thousand pities, comments Blunt, that " Banner- 
 man missed his opportunity of getting rid of Grey altogether 
 when it was offered." On December 21st, at the Albert 
 Hall, the new Prime Minister advocated the cultivation of 
 better relations with Germany, but the Alge^ipas Conference 
 
MOROCCO DISTURBS EUROPE 143 
 
 was about to meet, and in the coming struggle of the nations 
 there preparing to wrestle with one another, better relations 
 with Germany were hardly possible so long as our policy 
 bound us to an unconditional support of France, and public 
 opinion followed blindly the lead of The Times. Its chief 
 proprietor had been made Sir Alfred Harms worth in 1904, 
 and in 1905 was created Lord Northcliffe. The Belgian 
 Minister in London, Count Lalaing, writing to M. Davignon, 
 the Belgian Foreign Minister, on May 24, 1907, wrote as^ 
 follows in reference to Lord Northcliffe's journalistic 
 activities : "A certain category of the Press, known here 
 as the Yellow Press, is to a large extent responsible for the 
 hostility which is observable between the two countries 
 (England and Germany). What, indeed, can be expected 
 from a journalist like Mr. Harmsworth, proprietor of the 
 Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, Daily Graphic, Daily Express, 
 Evening News, and Weekly Dispatch, who, in an interview 
 which he has granted to the Matin, says : * Yes, we detest 
 the Germans cordially. They make themselves odious to 
 the whole of Europe. I will not allow my paper (The Times) 
 to publish anything which might in any way hurt the feelings 
 of the French, but I would not like to print anything which 
 might be agreeable to the Germans.' Journalists of this 
 stamp, publishers of cheap and widely read newspapers, 
 are able to poison at pleasure the mind of an entire nation. 
 It is evident that official circles in England are pursuing in 
 silence a hostile policy which aims at the isolation of Germany, 
 and that King Edward has not disdained to place his personal 
 influence in the service of this idea " {Belgian Diplomatic 
 Documents, No. 30). In such service, of course, there was 
 nothing like the help of The Times ; and how could gratitude 
 have failed for its assiduous sustenance ot the pro-war 
 propaganda in the years before the war ? Princess Bliicher 
 relates an incident which occurred at Berlin on October 
 23, 1915, when the war was raging, and which well illustrates 
 the feeling held in Germany regarding the connection of The 
 Times with the war. Herr Jagow, the German Foreign 
 Minister, turning suddenly to her at dinner, exclaimed : 
 
144 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 " But is there nobody who will shoot Lord Northcliffe ? 
 He is his own country's worst enemy as well as ours. And 
 he is more answerable for all this bloodshed and carnage 
 than any other single individual throughout the world " 
 (English Wife in Berlin, 8i). Nor was such an opinion 
 merely German ; for in 1920 an English anonymous writer 
 leant to the same view, writing of Lord Northcliffe : 
 " Whether he may not be charged in some measure at least 
 with the guilt of the war, whether he is not responsible 
 for the great bitterness which characterized Europe during 
 the last twenty years, is a question that must be left to 
 the historian " [Mirrors of Downing Street, 62). And what 
 historian has any doubt of it ? 
 
 There was, however, one important respect in which the 
 new Liberal Government was able to reverse the policy 
 of its Imperialist predecessor. There was to be no more 
 Chinese labour in the Transvaal. Lord Milner, whose oppo- 
 sition to the ordinance for its introduction would, it was 
 thought, have been effective in preventing it, retired from 
 Africa in April, being succeeded by Lord Selborne. At 
 the time of the change there were 34,315 Chinese on the 
 Rand ; and at the end of July they had increased to 43,141* 
 and great disorders and robberies had made their presence 
 less and less desirable. Nothing gave more general satis- 
 faction in the country than the preliminary steps taken 
 before the year was out for the removal from the Transvaal 
 of this last remnant of the Milnerian administration. The 
 last Chinamen left the Rand on February 28, 1910 [Ann, 
 Reg. Chronicle, 2). 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 1906 
 THE ALGE9IRAS CONFERENCE 
 
 The General Election, which lasted from January 13th to 
 February 13th, brought Mr. Balfour's long-tottering Unionist 
 Government to an end by a return of 513 Progressive members 
 to Parliament against 157 on the Tory side. If this meant 
 anything at all, it indicated the desire of the country for 
 an anti-militarist policy and for a reduction of armaments. 
 But no sooner had the new Parliament met than the defeated 
 Opposition found consolation for the verdict of the polls 
 by the promise of the new Government to continue the 
 foreign policy of its predecessor — an attitude probably 
 imposed on the new Liberal Government at or before its 
 formation. On October 20, 1905, when as yet Sir E. Grey 
 was only the prospective Foreign Secretary of a probable 
 Liberal Cabinet, he had said in the City that, if there was a 
 desire in Germany for improved relations with this country, 
 such a desire would encounter no opposition from our side, 
 but subject to the clear understanding that nothing we did 
 in that direction was in any way to impair our existing 
 good relations with France. " In other words, it must, in 
 my opinion," he said, '* be a condition of any improvement 
 in the public relations between Germany and ourselves 
 that the relations of Germany and France in all matters 
 which come under the French agreement should be fair 
 and good also '* (The Times, October 21, 1905). Count 
 Reventlow says that he made a similar statement on becoming 
 Foreign Secretary early in January 1906 (276). This 
 declaration was interpreted in Germany as an intimation 
 that at the coming international Conference she must con- 
 
 10 ^« 
 
146 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 form to the wishes of France or forfeit all hope of the diplo- 
 matic favour of England {ib. 276). It seemed to her that 
 she was expected to enter the Conference with her hands 
 tied beforehand. On the opening of Parliament on Feb- 
 ruary 19th Mr. Chamberlain welcomed the Government's 
 assurance of continuing the foreign policy of its defeated 
 predecessor ; but neither he nor the country knew the real 
 secret facts of the case, the scheme for partitioning Morocco 
 between France and Spain, and our commitment to support 
 France with military aid against Germany. Had these 
 conditions been known, it may be doubted whether the 
 country would not have deemed the reversal of the Tory 
 foreign policy better than its continuity. 
 
 In the same pursuit of the fetish of continuity the new 
 naval estimates " adhered strictly " to the Unionist pro- 
 gramme ; and especially was the selection of Mr. Haldane 
 as Secretary for War significant of that intended increase 
 and reorganization of the Army which was essential if we 
 were called upon to supply France with the promised Expedi- 
 tionary Force in a possible war with Germany. The new 
 War Secretary, forecasting the Army reforms of the next 
 year, and responsive to promptings from other sources 
 than the electorate, followed Lord Roberts implicitly in 
 his policy of turning the nation into an army. As he said 
 at Newcastle and elsewhere in the autumn, what he strove 
 for was " to popularize the conception of a Nation in Arms " 
 (Ann Reg., 1906, 214). 
 
 Thus the infusion of Liberal Imperialism in the new 
 Government rendered it impotent for pacific ends. Liberal 
 and pacifist hopes hardly survived the election, and there- 
 fore no amelioration of our relations with Germany ensued. 
 German hopes derived from our change of Government were 
 as much disappointed as our own. The view there taken 
 was that Campbell-Bannerman, personally disposed though 
 he was to a more friendly relationship, derived no support 
 from public opinion, nor from the chief members of the 
 Cabinet, and still less from the King ; and that the latter, 
 with his secretary, Sir Chailes Hardinge, Sir E. Grey and 
 
THE ALGEflRAS CONFERENCE 147 
 
 others, continued firmly on their course of animosity against 
 Germany [Reventlow, 288). The destinies of the country 
 passed entirely into the hands of the Liberal Imperialists, 
 who were indistinguishable in everything that mattered from 
 the leaders whom the country had rejected and from whose 
 dominion it wished to escape. Of such value is our vaunted 
 democracy ! 
 
 Responsive to the wishes of our War Secretary, the chief 
 feature of the year was the successful militarization of the 
 country for the war it both portended and promoted. There 
 was the Army Order of September 13th, which created a 
 General Staff, responsible for the training and organization 
 of the Auxiliary and Regular forces, in accordance with 
 the advice of the Esher Commission ; there was the great 
 encouragement given to military drill and rifle practice in 
 our schools ; there was the Spectator's experiment of keeping 
 working-class lads of about nineteen embodied for military 
 training in camp for six months. Neither by the King nor 
 by his Ministers does the danger seem to have been fore- 
 seen of the probable ultimate consequence of the excessive 
 cultivation of a Chauvinistic spirit in the country. 
 
 And few things showed the militarist drift of opinion 
 this year better than the episode of the glorification of 
 Lord Milner, deservedly illustrious though he was for so 
 many signal services to the State. Tales of the floggings 
 of Chinese labourers in the South African goldmines had 
 aroused great and just indignation in the more humane 
 sections of English public opinion, and on February 26th 
 Lord Milner frankly admitted that as High Commissioner 
 he had sanctioned such corporal punishment, though under 
 the impression that it only amounted to a light caning and 
 was only administered in cases of violence and disturbance. 
 He thought, in the light of subsequent events, that he had 
 acted wrongly ; and on the strength of this admission a 
 vote of censure against him was moved on March 21st, 
 when even Mr. Chamberlain's powerful defence availed 
 nothing against the argument of Mr. Churchill, Under-Secre- 
 tary for the Colonies, that this illegal flogging had been in 
 
148 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 practice in the mines during all the time that it had been 
 denied in Parliament, and that Lord Milner had been beyond 
 dispute guilty of a flagrant dereliction of duty ; with the 
 result that, though the resolution was negatived, the sense 
 of the House was shown in the carrying of the Government's 
 g,mendment by 355 to 135, which substituted an expression 
 of displeasure for an actual censure on the journals of the 
 House. Thereupon the friends of strong government rose 
 in their wrath. On March 29th Lord Halifax, in the Lords, 
 moved for an Address to Lord Milner expressive of gratitude 
 for his services in South Africa and the Empire, and this 
 Address was presented on July 31st with some 370,000 
 signatures appended. And on Empire Day, May 24th, a 
 grand dinner was given to Lord Milner at the Hotel Cecil 
 in honour of the statesman from whose diplomacy it had 
 resulted that the two independent Republics, the Transvaal 
 and the Orange Free State, had been forced after a terrible 
 war into the all-encompassing embrace of the British Empire. 
 Nevertheless the fact remained that a vast host of English- 
 men, whose names figured neither in the Address nor at the 
 dinner, took the view about the South African War, as Sir 
 Edward Clarke expressed it on October 19, 1899 (though 
 himself of the same political camp as Lord Milner), that 
 that " lamentable war was absolutely unnecessary " ; or, 
 as Mr. Stead described it, as "an outrage upon Christianity 
 and humanity,*' which had been " forced upon the Boers 
 by a policy which it was difficult to characterize in Parlia- 
 mentary terms." But why, after President Kruger had 
 reduced the number of years necessary to entitle a foreigner 
 to a vote down to five years, which was all that was origin- 
 ally asked for, the offer was not accepted but made the basis 
 for further demands, remains a mystery which received no 
 elucidation from the oratory of the Hotel Cecil. 
 
 But, a Liberal Government being now in power, it was 
 resolved so far as possible to redress the wrongs of the past, 
 and to remove that racial antagonism between British and 
 Dutch which had so lately drenched South Africa with 
 blood. The new Constitution for the Transvaal, drafted 
 
THE ALGEgiRAS CONFERENCE 149 
 
 by Mr. Asquith and introduced on July 31st to Parliament, 
 bestowed equal rights of citizenship on Boer and Briton 
 alike. So bold an experiment was to find its reward in later 
 years, and its success enhances the regret that must be felt 
 that so easy a settlement should not have preceded instead of 
 having followed so miserable and ruinous a war. But the 
 friends of the war were loud in predictions of consequent 
 danger. Lord Milner strongly denounced the Government 
 for so hasty a reversal of the policy of its predecessors : 
 it was " a great and capital error . . . mischief had been 
 done which could never be retrieved " {National Review, 
 xlviii. 5) ; and the Prime Minister declared that in the 
 whole of his Parliamentary career he had never heard so 
 unworthy a speech as that in which Mr. Balfour had 
 criticized the new departure as " a dangerous, audacious 
 and reckless experiment." 
 
 Colonial troubles soon arose. From the beginning of 
 the year there were rumours of unrest in Natal. To stimu- 
 late recruiting for the mines a poll tax had been imposed 
 or increased, and the natives nourished an absurd dislike 
 of being taxed for the pleasure of inclusion in the British 
 Empire. They also complained of their own earnings 
 being reduced by the importation of Chinese labour, and 
 of their treatment being worse than it had been formerly. 
 These explanations seem simpler than the supposition of 
 a plot to drive all whites from South Africa in accordance 
 with the teaching of a mysterious new cult called Ethi- 
 opianism. In any case, in February they rose — just as the 
 Hereros had risen against the Germans — and killed some 
 of the white poHce force, for which twelve out of 
 twenty-one prisoners concerned in the murder were sen- 
 tenced to be shot. On March 28th a telegram from 
 Lord Elgin, then Colonial Secretary, to stay the execu- 
 tions caused the Natal Ministry to resign, nor was their 
 resignation withdrawn till Lord Elgin had cancelled his objec- 
 tions. The executions took place on April 2nd, but hostili- 
 ties continued till July ; and though the charges of barbarity 
 against the Natal troops in the suppression of the rising 
 
150 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 were unproved, the official correspondence proved the exercise 
 of " great severity " ; some 3,500 natives were said to have 
 been killed, and 2,000 wounded or taken prisoners, and the 
 cost of the episode was £610,000 (Ann. Reg., 1906, 404). 
 
 A frontier difficulty between Turkey and Egypt arose 
 over a boundary dispute in the Sinai Peninsula. And when 
 the Porte refused to agree to a proposed joint delimitation, 
 military measures were taken, and at the end of April the 
 Mediterranean Fleet was sent to Phalerum. A Note or 
 Ultimatum was presented to the Porte on May 3rd, compli- 
 ance with which on May 13th cleared the atmosphere. But 
 the belief widely circulated that the Turkish resistance 
 was due to German instigation was contradicted by Mr. 
 Runciman on behalf of the Foreign Office on May 7th, and 
 was merely one of those false rumours which at that time 
 were partly the cause and partly the consequence of the 
 prevalent state of alarm. 
 
 But what chiefly troubled English and European opinion 
 was the Conference at Alge9iras ; for it opened up endless 
 possibilities of war. It seemed not unlikely that, instead 
 of tending to reconcile Germany and France, as Prince 
 Billow dared to hope, the Conference might draw them 
 farther apart, especially as it was well known that the 
 sympathies of a majority of the Powers represented were 
 antagonistic to Germany from the start. This was espe- 
 cially true of our own country, of whose thick-and-thin 
 support of France Sir E. Grey made no concealment from 
 the German Ambassador. 
 
 It is curious to find how the Kaiser, in January 1906, 
 at the very time when the French Government' was repre- 
 senting to Sir E. Grey its fear of an unprovoked attack 
 from Germany, remained optimistic about peace. On 
 January 29th he expressed his opinion to the Czar that 
 it would " come out all right without war " ; the decisive 
 point being that no other Power had shown any disposition 
 to lend France armed support should she wish to invade 
 Morocco, and that without such support France was un- 
 likely to face the risk. Some arrangement, he thought, 
 
THE ALGEgiRAS CONFERENCE 151 
 
 would be made which would ensure peace with honour to 
 all parties concerned, and would maintain the " open door " 
 for the trade of the whole world. Meantime, the more closely 
 France was drawn over to Russia, the more she would keep 
 out of mischief {Letter 54). 
 
 But the Kaiser's hope that the Conference would " come 
 out all right without war '* seemed rather a bold one. On 
 December 9, 1905, Prince Biilow had complained of the 
 efforts made by the English Press for years past to attribute 
 to Germany all sorts of dark designs, and he strongly repu- 
 diated the allegation that in her Moroccan policy Germany 
 was seeking for a cause of quarrel with France, or that her 
 motive was money or plunder or the forcing of France into 
 an alliance with Germany against England {Reden, ii. 259-60). 
 Against Bebel's complaint of the Kaiser's visit to Tangier 
 as a direct provocation to France, the Chancellor declared 
 that he himself had counselled this step at a time when the 
 Moroccan question was becoming acute, in order to emphasize 
 the international character of the settlement required (ib. ii. 
 272). The Kaiser had declared in March 1904 to the King 
 of Spain that Germany had no territorial aims in Morocco, 
 and that his visit to the Mediterranean had no designs 
 against the integrity and independence of that country. 
 As in China, so in Morocco, the protection of Germany's 
 commercial interests through the policy of the " open door " 
 was her sole concern. The Chancellor had hoped, though 
 in vain, that after his speech in the March of the previous 
 year France would have approached Germany with a view 
 to coming to an amicable understanding ; but a part of the 
 French Press had actually used the Anglo-French Conven- 
 tion of 1904 as a weapon against Germany, and for throwing 
 difficulties in her way. If the claims on Morocco made at 
 Fez by St. Rene Taillandier, on the strength of an alleged 
 European mandate, were allowed to stand, he feared that 
 German trade would receive a fatal blow, and Morocco 
 would become a second Tunis, from which all non-French 
 influence would be excluded. 
 
 And whilst matters stood on so unsatisfactory a footing 
 
152 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 between France and Germany, preparations for an expected 
 war became vigorous in England. Hardly had Mr. Haldane 
 become Secretary for War in the new Government than 
 the necessity of recasting the Army forced itself upon him, 
 the problem being, in accordance with the military agree- 
 ment of the Dual Entente, to mobilize rapidly as many as 
 160,000 men ; to transport them with the aid of the Navy 
 to a place of concentration decided on by the French and 
 British Staffs, and to have them at such appointed place 
 within the space of twelve days. It took three years to 
 work out this scheme, which was complete by the end of 
 1910 [Before the War, 33). But military opinion was divided 
 as to the best plan of campaign. Major Huguet, the French 
 Military Attache in London, told Colonel Repington that 
 the French Navy was prepared for war, the French Army 
 ready, and reservists coming to barracks for orders. The 
 First Naval Lord, Sir John Fisher, was creating a new 
 Western Fleet, though confident that Admiral Wilson's 
 Channel Fleet was " alone strong enough to smash the 
 Germans." But, whilst Sir John Fisher and Sir George 
 Clarke, the Secretary of the Defence Committee, and Sir 
 John French, favoured an attack on the German coasts in 
 case of war, and were opposed to a union of British with 
 French forces on French soil. Colonel Repington himself. 
 Major Huguet, Admiral Wilson, and General Grierson were 
 totally opposed to such a plan, and experienced some diffi- 
 culty in overruHng it (First World War, chap. i.). 
 
 Military conversations thus naturally began between 
 English and French authorities, and they began about the 
 middle of January, almost simultaneously with the opening 
 of the Conference on January i6th, under the presidency 
 of the Spanish Foreign Minister, the Duke of Almodovar. 
 There were two sets of conversations carried on at the same 
 time. One began on January 17th between Major Huguet 
 on the side of France and General Grierson on ours, with 
 the previous sanction of Sir E. Grey and Mr. Haldane and 
 the subsequent approval of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman. 
 Neither the Cabinet as a whole nor Parliament was suffered 
 
THE ALGEgiRAS CONFERENCE 153 
 
 to know what was passing. But, despite efforts for secrecy, 
 the Figaro " revealed the truth one fine day in a veiled but 
 perfectly patent manner." Colonel Repington thought it 
 a good thing that the Germans should thus or otherwise 
 have got to know that the Dual Entente " had been supple- 
 mented by a plan of naval and military co-operation in the 
 event of German aggression. It was bound to give the 
 Germans pause, and make them dread the consequences of 
 finding England across their path if they ventured on a war 
 of aggression against France. This the Colonel thought that 
 it did, thus removing the danger to peace. But he adds that 
 these conversations, which Sir E. Grey, in his letter of 
 November 22, 1912, to the French Ambassador spoke of as 
 having occurred " from time to time in recent years," " con- 
 tinued uninterruptedly till the outbreak of war in 1914," 
 leading to close co-operation between the British and French 
 Staffs, and " to the gradual working out of all the naval, 
 military, and railway projects for the delivery of our Expe- 
 ditionary Force in France." But in that case, assuming 
 Germany not ignorant of the position, how vain must have 
 been Mr. Haldane's attempts to establish an entente with 
 Germany in 1912 (Before the War, 103, 146) ; and how can 
 it be pretended that the war, when at last it came after eight 
 years of uninterrupted preparation by the experts, found 
 the Powers of the Dual Entente totally unprepared for it ? 
 The other set of conversations began also in the middle 
 of January between Colonel Barnadiston, our Military 
 Attache in Brussels, and General Ducarne, Chief of the 
 Belgian General Staff. They are recorded in a letter of 
 April 10, 1906, by the Belgian General, found later in the 
 archives of the Belgian War Office, and reprinted in facsimile 
 with an Italian translation (Conventions Anglo-Beiges, Brit. 
 Museum, 08027, i- 3^)- Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg said 
 in his Reflections on the World War (148, Transl.) that these 
 documents referring to the military use of Belgium were 
 unknown in Germany before they were found during the 
 war ; but their purport appears to have been known to 
 Baron Griendl at Berlin as early as April 1906. The con- 
 
154 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 versations concerned the landing of 100,000 men on the 
 French coast near Calais or Dunkirk to act against any 
 violation by Germany of Belgian neutrality. The transport 
 would take ten days. Could Belgium protect herself during 
 the transport ? It was replied that the garrisons of Namur 
 and Li^ge were secure against any sudden attack, and that 
 in four days the Belgian Army would be ready to take its 
 part in the defence. Barnadiston insisted on the conversa- 
 tion being strictly confidential ; he did not bind his Govern- 
 ment, nor did he know whether the King had been consulted, 
 but he assured General Ducarne of the consent of General 
 Grierson to the plan. Most minute secondary questions were 
 discussed : the translators and gendarmes that should 
 accompany the troops, the maps, the uniforms, the hospital 
 arrangements for the wounded, etc. Colonel Barnadiston 
 doubted whether Holland would help or intervene. And 
 the scheme survived the settlement of the Moroccan ques- 
 tion, for when General Ducarne met General Grierson at 
 Compiegne at the September manoeuvres, the English General 
 told General Ducarne that the reorganization of the British 
 Army could now ensure the landing of 150,000 men, who 
 would be ready for active service sooner than had formerly 
 been thought possible. So minutely was this scheme carried 
 out that Sir Henry Wilson, the Director of Military Opera- 
 tions at Army Headquarters before the war, had bicycled 
 time after time over the very ground of the eventual war, 
 and at one place even chosen the billets for our Headquarters 
 long before the war began (Wright's At the Supreme War 
 Council, 38). Baron Greindl, on April 5th, thus expressed 
 what the Germans felt about such military conversations 
 and preparations : 
 
 *' There is no longer any doubt that it was the King 
 of England who, independently of the Government, in- 
 cited M. Delcasse to pursue a warlike policy, and that it 
 was he who made the promise to the effect that 100,000 
 soldiers should be landed in Holstein. ... If any doubts 
 could still prevail, they would be dispelled by the singular 
 proposals which Colonel Barnadiston has made to General 
 
THE ALGEgiRAS CONFERENCE 155 
 
 Ducarne " {Belgian Diplomatic Documents, No. 17). And 
 again on April i8th : " The offer of 100,000 men, made by 
 the King of England, cannot be forgotten in Berlin. We 
 ourselves need only recollect the singular overtures made 
 by Colonel Barnadiston to General Ducarne *' {ih. 29). 
 
 It was under such unpropitious conditions that the 
 Conference opened, and an anxious time it was for the new 
 Liberal Government, bound as we were by the entente to 
 give France our unstinted support at its deliberations. 
 When asked by the French and the German Ambassadors in 
 London whether we should give armed support in the event 
 of war being forced upon France, in connection with our 
 Moroccan agreement of April 8, 1904, Sir E. Grey replied 
 that he thought public opinion in England would rally to 
 the material support of France. That, he said, was only his 
 opinion ; though how it could be taken as other than a 
 promise to France or than as a threat to Germany he never 
 explained (speech on August 3, 1914). But Baron von 
 Grootven, Belgian Charge d' Affaires in Paris, wrote rather 
 differently to the Belgian Foreign Minister on January 14, 
 1906 : that Sir E. Grey had ** recently repeated several 
 times to the different Ambassadors in London that Great 
 Britain was under certain obligations as regards Morocco, 
 and that she would fulfil these obligations at whatever cost 
 to herself in the event of a Franco-German war breaking out " 
 (Belgian Diplomatic Documents, 15). In that case there was no 
 restriction about German aggression, and our neutrality must 
 have been far less neutral than was in 1914 tardily acknow- 
 ledged to Parliament. Little did anyone dream in early 1906 
 how slight was our prospect of neutrality in the expected 
 war, or suspect how that supposed instrument of peace, the 
 entente of 1904, was rapidly being turned into an instrument 
 of war. We were virtually committed without our know 
 ledge to take part in any future French war against Germany, 
 however it arose. A few years later, at the time of the 
 Agadir incident in July 1911, orders were given for an 
 expedition to land in France, '* though it was no longer 
 possible to send more than 80,000 men, instead of 160,000." 
 
156 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 So Mr. George Wyndham told Blunt on October 13, 191 1 
 (Diaries, ii. 381) ; and so much for the oft-repeated minis- 
 terial assurances of the purely innocuous meaning of the 
 Dual Entente. 
 
 There were eighteen sessions of the Alge9iras Conference, 
 including the last one on April 7th ; and the discussions 
 concerning smuggling, import duties, a State Bank, or the 
 organization of the police, were often less harmonious than one 
 might be led to suppose from a perusal of them in the second 
 part of the French Documents Diplomatiques, Affaires du 
 Maroc. And the war-cloud brooded over the Conference 
 all the time. Germany was annoyed that, despite her neutral 
 or friendly attitude to Russia during the Japanese War, 
 the Russian representative at Alge9iras should have almost 
 taken the side of England and France (Reventlow, 307). 
 Our own attitude was equally pronounced. The English 
 Press, wrote Baron Greindl on April 5th, did " all it could 
 to prevent the Conference being successful. It showed 
 itself to be more irreconcilable than the French Press. . . . 
 It is not apparent that the British Ambassador made the 
 slightest effort at Algegiras with a view to discovering a 
 solution equally acceptable to Germany and to France." 
 
 In this state of things it unfortunately added nothing 
 to the chances of peace that the King, travelling incognito 
 as the Duke of Lancaster on his way to Biarritz, visited 
 Paris on March 3rd. Naturally he called on President 
 Falli^res, met him at dinner at the British Embassy one 
 day, and on another himself entertained at lunch M. and 
 Mme. Loubet and M. Delcasse. But this luncheon, like a 
 similar one the year before, became a political event of the 
 first importance. It was needless, wrote The Times corre- 
 spondent, " to insist on the suggestive significance of this 
 fact [the lunch] at the present moment. Few things more 
 tactful have ever been done by Edward VII than this invita- 
 tion, which proves the sincere esteem of His Majesty tor the 
 President and the Minister who did so much to facilitate 
 the realization of his own efforts to bring about the entente 
 i^ordiale between England and France." But another view 
 
THE ALGECIRAS CONFERENCE 157 
 
 was also taken. The Belgian Minister at Paris, writing 
 to the Belgian Foreign Minister on March 6th, described 
 the lunch as a *' highly significant demonstration " ; by 
 inviting M. Delcasse, the King had given a new meaning 
 to the agreement of April 1904, and had solemnly approved 
 a policy against which Germany had protested, and which 
 France herself had repudiated. In diplomatic circles *' this 
 demonstration was considered, not only as useless, but also 
 as very dangerous, at the present moment " ; it was taken 
 as *' a symptom of England's desire to envenom matters to 
 such an extent that war should be rendered inevitable " 
 {Belgian Diplomatic Documents, 16). The Conference at 
 the time had reached a critical stage over the policing of 
 Morocco, and Germany saw in the King's visit to Paris, not 
 only a retort to the Kaiser's visit to Tangier in 1905, but 
 an expression of his intention to give a thoroughgoing 
 support to that determined opposition to Germany which 
 had suffered but little abatement from the resignation 
 of M. Delcasse from the French Foreign Office in June 1905 
 (Reventlow, 276-7). 
 
 M. Rouvier, the Prime Minister, whose personal action 
 did so much for a pacific issue, saw the King off from Paris 
 on March 6th, and the next day the Rouvier Ministry was 
 defeated in the Chamber of Deputies. During his stay 
 at Biarritz the King had meetings with King Alfonso, with 
 whom it is reasonable to suppose that their common policy 
 about Morocco was reaffirmed. After a voyage in the Medi- 
 terranean, during which he was present at the Olympic 
 games at Athens, the King again visited Paris on his way 
 home, and was again entertained by President Falli^res, 
 the usual toasts of friendship between England and France 
 being exchanged. The visit helped to cement the entente, 
 owing to the great popularity which the King enjoyed both 
 with the people and the statesmen of France. But Germany 
 looked with suspicion on these civilities to France, and 
 thought it less certain than it had seemed to the Kaiser at 
 the end of January that France could count upon no armed 
 support in case of war. The King was credited with having 
 
158 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 expressed a wish for a military convention with France : 
 a wish sympathetically received (Schiemann, vi. 109) ; and 
 when M. Clemenceau, whose Ministry followed the Sarrien 
 Ministry on October 22nd, was questioned in the Chamber 
 about it, his answer that he neither knew of, nor believed in, 
 any such convention was thought too evasive to disprove 
 it {ih. vi. 374 ; Reventlow, 326). In any case, the miHtary 
 conversations that had occurred were referred to as well- 
 known facts in the following April by Herr Bassermann at 
 Magdeburg (The Times, April 17, 1907). 
 
 On March 6th, the same day on which King Edward left 
 Paris, the Kaiser was thanking his cousin, the Czar, for the 
 gifts and congratulatory deputations which he had sent in 
 honour of the Kaiser's silver wedding. But it was no happy 
 time for the monarchs of Europe. In Russia all this time 
 the revolutionary movement, which was ultimately to 
 develop into the Communist Government, was in full swing. 
 Refugees from the Baltic provinces, from Courland and 
 Livonia, were swarming into Germany : there were over 
 50,000 in Berlin alone. Many of the Russian nobles were 
 in the direst distress, having seen their castles burnt, their 
 forests destroyed, and their estates pillaged. The great 
 landed German proprietors showed the utmost liberality 
 in volunteering to receive Russian families into their houses. 
 The Duma, opened for the first time on May loth, created 
 great difficulties for the Czar's Government, and the Kaiser 
 could only hope that in course of time the Czar and his 
 Duma might come to some reasonable modus vivendi. At the 
 same time the Austrian Emperor Francis Joseph was " also 
 much irritated at the behaviour of his Parliament." And 
 to these chronic troubles between monarchs and their Par- 
 liaments was added the gloomy menace of deliberate anarchy ; 
 as when on May 31st the lives of the King and Queen of 
 Spain were attempted by a bomb thrown at the Royal 
 coach as it was driving them back from their wedding. 
 
 The attempt was rightly described by the Kaiser as 
 ** dastardly and fiendish." He considered that his own 
 fa,ilure an4 that of the Czar to cope with the ^archists 
 
THE ALGECIRAS CONFERENCE 159 
 
 was due to their being allowed to live with absolute impunity 
 in London, and he wished that the Continental Powers 
 would send a joint invitation to the English Government 
 to ask them to join in an international agreement " to fight 
 these beasts " (Letter 56, June 14, 1906). About the same 
 time an important change was made in the Russian Foreign 
 Office. Count Witte, having resigned on the eve of the open- 
 ing of the Duma, was succeeded by Isvolsky as Foreign 
 Minister : ** a most clever man," the Kaiser thought, " who 
 would easily guide the course of Russian foreign politics 
 along the peaceful lines " desired of the Czar. The Kaiser 
 hoped that under Isvolsky's direction the Czar's Govern- 
 ment and his own might continue to work with him in mutual 
 confidence over the projected Bagdad railway, where 
 German interests were " purely economic and commercial 
 for the welfare of mankind." The Kaiser's mistrust of our 
 Government showed no diminution. He could well under- 
 stand that the English were, as the Czar had expressed it, 
 " fiddling around " him about Asia, but, as his cousin had 
 decided calmly to await their proposals, he felt sure that 
 an understanding would remove many elements of friction, 
 and would be satisfactory to the Kaiser himself. He thought 
 the moment chosen by the English Fleet for their " self- 
 invited visit " to the Baltic *' must be most irritating and 
 inopportune to the Czar and his country," and he was fully 
 convinced of his cousin's feelings of indignation about it 
 from his own feelings about their visit to Germany in 1905. 
 He intended to have them closely watched on their return 
 journey (Letter 56). 
 
 But the Kaiser's hopes of Isvolsky were somewhat mis- 
 placed, for Russia had no more bitter opponent of Germany 
 and her Emperor than the new Foreign Minister. Before 
 entering on his Foreign Office duties in May 1906, Isvolsky 
 spent three weeks in Paris and London in communication 
 with the Russian Ambassador in France, M. NeUdoff ; with 
 the Russian Ambassador in England, Count Benckendorff ; 
 and with the Russian Ambassador to Italy, M. Mouravieff ; 
 and with them he settled the plan of Russian policy which 
 
160 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 as Foreign Minister he proceeded to submit to the Czar. 
 They had unanimously concluded that Russian policy 
 " must continue to rest on the unchangeable base of her 
 alliance with France," fortified and enlarged by agreements 
 with England and Japan (Memoirs, 83). As he says himself, 
 this was the beginning of the Triple Entente, which lasted 
 throughout his Foreign Ministry (ib. 35-6), and was opera- 
 tive when the war began in 1914. Accepting the conventional 
 belief that the Kaiser would be driven by his war party to 
 begin a war of aggression, Isvolsky held that the only course 
 of safety lay in fortifying by every possible means the 
 political, military, and economic power of the Triple Entente 
 (ib. 132). Whether he was right may be doubted : his policy, 
 at all events, ended in war, and possibly Count Witte's might 
 have averted it. 
 
 Isvolsky's strong anti-German feelings being well known 
 at the English Court, it was naturally hoped in England 
 that an Anglo-Russian Entente might supplement or 
 develop out of the Anglo-French Entente (Ann. Reg., 1906, 
 85). This hope grew, of course, in strength when our former 
 alarms about Russia had been dissipated by her defeat by 
 Japan ; and the King's long intimacy with the Russian 
 Court encouraged fresh efforts for drawing Russia over to 
 the side of the Dual Entente (Reventlow, 310.) Rumour, 
 indeed, soon began to talk of this desired entente as actually 
 achieved, till on May 24th Sir E. Grey thought it prudent 
 to deny the fact (Ann Reg., 1906, 137). 
 
 With the political current running so strongly in this 
 direction, it must be counted to the credit of diplomacy 
 that the Algegiras Conference terminated without an inter- 
 national rupture. It was from that date that Europe 
 definitely ranged itself into the two main hostile camps 
 which were destined to try conclusions eight years later. 
 According to Count Goluchowski, the Austrian Foreign 
 Minister, it was the mediatory action of Austria that saved 
 the Conference from shipwreck (ib. 1906, 212), Austria 
 being then on friendly terms with France as well as allied 
 with Germany. But after the settlement Prince Biilow 
 
THE ALGECIRAS CONFERENCE 161 
 
 admitted that for weeks fears of warlike developments 
 had prevailed (Reden, ii. 303). His account of the trans- 
 actions was of interest. Germany, he averred, had never 
 wished to fight for Morocco, where she had no political 
 interests nor aspirations, having neither historical connections 
 with the country as Spain had, nor extensive conterminous 
 frontiers with it, as France had, but only economical interests 
 in a country recently opened up and capable of great future 
 development. So long as Germany had a voice in the 
 settlement and was not treated as a quantite negligeable 
 by the other Powers, she had no desire to act in opposition 
 either to France or to Spain. She had stood for the prin- 
 ciple that an international treaty could only be altered with 
 the consent of all the signatory Powers, and that commercial 
 competition should be open to all of them equally. He 
 paid a graceful tribute to France for her contribution to a 
 peaceful settlement : " France, with the same conciliatory 
 spirit as ourselves," had shown herself prepared for a loyal 
 solution of the most difficult problem of all : the organiza- 
 tion of the police. And Germany, acting in no niggardly 
 spirit, but compromising in many questions of detail, had 
 held unshakenly to the principle of the " open door." It had 
 been a fairly difficult mountain to get over ; many passages 
 had not been without danger ; but a time of trouble and 
 unrest lay behind, and the future might reasonably be faced 
 with tranquillity (ib. ii. 304). All which was excellently 
 said, but was far from being a correct forecast of the future. 
 France, too, through the mouth of her Foreign Minister, 
 M. Bourgeois, on April 12th, spoke equally in a tone of con- 
 cord. He dwelt on the decisions arrived at as not only 
 conformable with the wishes of France, but as received 
 by all the Powers with the feelings that every equitable 
 transaction inspired. He touched pleasantly on the con- 
 ciliatory efforts of the ItaHan, American, and Austrian 
 deputies ; on the mutual confidence between France and 
 Spain ; and on the unshakable firmness shown by Russia 
 and England in their support of the legitimacy and modera- 
 tion of the French claims. He concluded with praise for 
 
 11 
 
162 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 the " high morality *' of the work accomplished ; for its 
 foundation in reason and equity ; for the goodwill shown 
 by the Powers in subordinating their particular views to 
 the needs of a good understanding between all, and thereby 
 assuring for the world's future that stat^ of calm and con- 
 fidence required for good international relations (Documents 
 Diplomatiques, 288-94). All which was also excellently 
 said, but proved a no less erroneous forecast than the 
 Chancellor's. 
 
 The Sultan ratified the Alge9iras Act between himself 
 and the twelve Christian Powers on June i8th, and the 
 Act effected sundry reforms for the better government of 
 his country. His sovereignty and independence were pre- 
 served, the integrity of his dominions maintained, and 
 economic liberty assured for all nations. The final article 
 (123) stipulated that all pre-existent treaties or agreements 
 of any of the signatory Powers with Morocco were left un- 
 altered except on points where any of their conditions 
 conflicted with those of the General Act. As, therefore, 
 the Anglo-French Declaration of April 8, 1904, was not 
 an agreement with Morocco, but about Morocco, the Alge^iras 
 Act in no way overruled or affected the secret clauses which 
 were appended to the Declaration, and which continued to 
 poison the whole political atmosphere of Europe. 
 
 It was to be regretted that all parties in Germany did 
 not share in the Chancellor's professed satisfaction with the 
 settlement. Baron Eckhardstein wrote of Germany's *' com- 
 plete diplomatic discomfiture at the Alge^iras Conference," 
 but, though he had seldom a tolerant word for the Kaiser 
 or most of his Ministers, he acquitted the Kaiser as " not 
 directly to blame " for it (68, 126). And many who were 
 strongly anti-English, like Count Reventlow, felt that, 
 though peace had been preserved, the Conference had exposed 
 the almost complete isolation of Germany and her power- 
 lessness against the combination opposed to her (286). 
 Germany had been forced to yield one position after another, 
 and, though Delcass^ had resigned, his spirit had survived 
 and prevailed {ib, 284). All through the period King 
 
THE ALGEgiRAS CONFERENCE 168 
 
 Edward, his Ministers, and the British Press had let no 
 opportunity pass of showing their antipathy to Germany 
 and disregard of her claims (ib. 185). Count Reventlow 
 thought in later years that, from the German point of view, 
 Germany would have done better if, instead of resorting 
 to an International Conference, she had in 1905 either settled 
 the Moroccan quarrel separately with France or in default 
 of such settlement had gone to war with her, at a time when 
 the victory of Japan had rendered Russia useless as her 
 ally (ib. 272). 
 
 In England we had been educated for so many years 
 into an attitude of alarm of a German invasion that it is 
 difficult to realize that as great an alarm of our innocent 
 selves existed in Germany. This may be illustrated by a 
 story told by Sir John (then Lord) Fisher. Mr. Beit, the 
 South African millionaire, having returned in January from 
 Berlin, where he had seen the Kaiser, the King sent Lord 
 Esher to obtain from Mr. Beit some account of the inter- 
 view. The Kaiser had said that he was aware that England 
 wanted a war, not indeed the King nor his Government, 
 but influential people like Sir John Fisher, whose view was 
 that the British Fleet was in perfect order, and that, as the 
 German Fleet was not yet ready, England should provoke 
 a war. To which Beit rephed that during long talks with 
 Fisher at Carlsbad he had gathered nothing of any such 
 views. The Kaiser replied : "He thinks it is the hour 
 for attack, and I am not blaming him. I quite understand 
 his point of view ; but we too are prepared. . . . Fisher can 
 no doubt land 100,000 men in Schleswig-Holstein — it would 
 not be difficult — and the British Navy has reconnoitred the 
 coast of Denmark with this object during the cruise of the 
 fleet. But he forgets that it will be for me to deal with 
 the 100,000 men when they are landed " (Memories, 33). 
 And when Beit went on to tell the Kaiser that there was no 
 feeling in England for war with Germany, and that Balfour 
 on one side of politics and Campbell-Bannerman on the other 
 were absolutely averse to it, the Kaiser replied that it did 
 not matter which of them was Prime Minister, or which 
 
164 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 party was in power, so long as Fisher remained. He also 
 told Beit that he knew of Fisher's idea of the Baltic's being 
 Germany's vulnerable point, and that he had heard of 
 Fisher's plan of " Copenhagening " the German Fleet. 
 Fisher doubted the truth of this, and thought the Kaiser 
 only said it as obviously the thing he ought to say. And the 
 Kaiser on a previous occasion had told a friend of Sir John's 
 very much what he told Beit, namely, that the spot he was 
 really afraid of was on the Pomeranian coast, less than 
 100 miles from Berlin, where the Russian Army had landed 
 in the time of Frederick the Great, and where another army 
 might land again. This had long been a German fear ; for 
 as far back as June 1899 a German General had expressed to 
 Sir John his apprehension of our landing a large force only 
 90 miles from Berlin on a 14 miles' stretch of sandy 
 beach in Pomerania, where no defence was possible against 
 a battle-fleet " sweeping with devastating shells the flat 
 country for miles, like a mower's scythe " (ib. 212). 
 
 With this knowledge of our designs of landing an army 
 on the Continent it must have surprised Mr. Haldane, when 
 he visited Berlin in the autumn, to find the Kaiser and his 
 Ministers in so pacific a mood as he describes. Invited 
 by the Kaiser personally, he was cordially received every- 
 where, both by the Kaiser and by the populace, though 
 somewhat to the displeasure of the German war party, 
 which " stood then unmistakably for a minority." And, 
 though our Secretary for War, he was freely admitted to 
 a study of the military organization of Germany, in the 
 interests of the military reforms he contemplated at home. 
 He recognized the " existence of peaceful ideas " among 
 " a large majority of the people of Germany." In a con- 
 versation with the Kaiser in the Palace which lasted for 
 two and a half hours the Kaiser disclaimed any disHke 
 for our entente with France ; he beUeved it might even 
 improve relations between Germany and France, for which 
 he wished and which he was trying to obtain. " Not one 
 inch of French territory would he ever covet." " He desired 
 no quarrel, and the whole fault was Delcasse's who had 
 
THE ALGECIRAS CONFERENCE 165 
 
 wanted to pick a quarrel and bring England into it/' What 
 he himself wanted " was not territory but trade expansion." 
 He could, however, not join in the Hague Conference, if 
 disarmament were proposed. Yet the best testimony to 
 his earnest desire for peace was that he had had no war, 
 though he should have had it but for his having earnestly 
 striven to avoid it (Before the War, 22, 36-40). But, if 
 this was the mood of the Kaiser and of the German people, 
 what can be thought of a diplomacy that failed to extract 
 peaceable relations from conditions so favourable ? 
 
 Yet all the time peace rested on a most precarious foot- 
 ing. Lord Fisher has told a story which shows how very 
 narrowly a war with Germany was actually missed at a date 
 which he does not mention, but which it would have been 
 all the more interesting to know, as the incident itself escaped 
 the notice of the Press. The German Ambassador at Lisbon 
 called one day on the Portuguese Prime Minister, and 
 threatened to leave the next night unless certain conces- 
 sions, including an isolated and fortified coaHng-station at 
 Madeira, were made to Germany. " The Portuguese sent 
 us a telegram. That night we ordered the British Fleet 
 to move." *' Next morning the German Ambassador changed 
 his mind about leaving, and expressed regret for having 
 made a mistake." Lord Fisher for this service received the 
 Grand Cordon of the Legion d'Honneur from the French 
 President ; for, "if it had not been for the British Fleet on 
 this occasion, the Germans would have been in Paris in a 
 week " (Memories, ii. 2). So at least thought Lord Fisher. 
 
 The pacifist forces of the country continued throughout 
 the year their unequal conflict with the militarist party. 
 The Anglo-German Committee for piomoting peace and 
 friendship with Germany struggled gallantly against the 
 naval and military preparations for a war which all appre- 
 hended and not a few desired. But it was powerless against 
 the stronger social forces which would suffer no abatement 
 of the animosity that had been bred of the Boer War. King 
 Edward showed his sympathy with the movement by his 
 reception in May at Buckingham Palace of the representa- 
 
166 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 lives of the German Municipal Corporations on their visit 
 to England. The German burgomasters were also enter- 
 tained by the Lord Mayor, and by speeches from Mr. John 
 Burns, Mr. Churchill, and Mr. Haldane, the latter of whom 
 eulogized the Kaiser as a ** true child of the time-spirit " 
 (Ann. Reg,, 1906, 137). On June 21st a number of German 
 editors and journaHsts were the guests at dinner of the 
 Anglo-German Committee, with Lord Avebury presiding ; 
 the editor of the German Nation, Herr Barth, judiciously 
 remarking that the disarmament of the nations ought first 
 to begin with the Press. But this was a mode of disarmament 
 that lay beyond the wildest dream of hope. " Alas,'* wrote 
 Herr von Tschirsky, the German Foreign Minister, to Mr. 
 Haldane, " papers hke The Times, Morning Post, and Standard 
 cannot bring themselves to refrain from their attitude of 
 dislike, and are always rejoicing in being suspicious of every 
 action of the Imperial Government . . . still I hope and am 
 persuaded that the relations of the two Governments will 
 remain good." Nor in the making of history was the influ- 
 ence of money on the Press a pleasing feature of the time. 
 On April 25th Professor Schiemann wrote of it as no secret 
 that during the Moroccan crisis the Press campaign caused 
 much money to circulate ; it was still less a secret that the 
 last Russian war loan had only been made possible by enor- 
 mous payments to the EngKsh and French newspapers 
 (vi. 146). To what an extent in July 1914 money was em- 
 ployed to produce a certain mental atmosphere by bribing 
 the Press has been abundantly revealed in the documents 
 relating to that time. The practice became one of the 
 chief functions of the ambassadorial office (Die Deutschen 
 Dociimente zum Kriegsatishnich, Nos. 32, 47, 52, 97, 128, 167). 
 The first Dreadnought left Portsmouth on her trial trip 
 on August ist, and on August 4th the King and Prince of 
 Wales went to inspect her. A few days later, August nth, 
 a visit for the day by the King to his nephew at Cronberg 
 was ** welcomed with universal sympathy in the German 
 Press " (Ann. Reg., 1906, 303). He received a cordial recep- 
 tion from the Kaiser. Nevertheless the propaganda of 
 
THE ALGEgiRAS CONFERENCE 16T 
 
 mistrust between the nations continued, as was shown at 
 the Pan-German meeting in Dresden in the middle of the 
 month, where the late Conference was openly spoken of as 
 a defeat for German diplomacy. It was said that Delcasse's 
 revelations of England's promise of military aid to France, 
 and the hostility of influential circles in England, made 
 Germany's position as a Great Power precarious ; that the 
 Triple AUiance had become so much waste paper ; and 
 that the Navy was insufficiently increased. And on our side, 
 public credulity continued to fasten and feed itself on the 
 phantom of a German invasion, despite Sir J. Fisher's ridi- 
 cule of the notion. In German opinion two considerations 
 made such an idea impossible : first, the knowledge of the 
 absolute inferiority of the German Fleet and of its certain 
 destruction in case of war ; secondly, the knowledge that 
 German commerce and German colonies would be lost in 
 a war. Germany was conscious that in a war her fleet 
 could only act on the defensive, and that her whole strength 
 would have to be directed against France, if alHed with 
 England, in order that she might in this way hope to 
 compensate herself for the inevitable losses of her colonies 
 and commerce {Schiemann, iv. 202). And this was to prove 
 a remarkably accurate forecast of the future. 
 
 In this troubled state of international feeling the domestic 
 reforms expected of a Liberal Government were skilfully 
 defeated by the Unionist Opposition. Especially was this the 
 case with the new Education Bill : a thorny subject for any 
 Government. On July 30th it passed its third reading in 
 the Commons by 369 to 177 ; but the Lords proposed certain 
 amendments which virtually destroyed the Bill, and, though 
 the Lower House rejected these amendments on Decem- 
 ber nth by 456 to 107, Lord Lansdowne on December 17th 
 carried his motion for insistence on them by 132 to 52. 
 whereupon the Bill was dropped altogether after the enor- 
 mous waste of talk and heated debate that had been 
 expended upon it. For this fiasco the Prime Minister 
 blamed Mr. Balfour, but the Opposition regarded it as a 
 ftesb Rionumeiit to Jus sagacity. 
 
168 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 To alleviate, if possible, the ferment of the nations. 
 Prince Billow, the Chancellor, made a speech in the Reichstag 
 on November 14th which ranked as an historical event. 
 Sir Charles Dilke wrote of it as " one of the best ever made 
 by a statesman," and as creative of " universal astonish- 
 ment " {Life, ii. 561). Beginning with a graceful allusion 
 to Gambetta towards himself as a young man at Paris, 
 the Prince went on to review the relations of his country 
 to other foreign Powers in a way calculated to disarm their 
 hostihty. It was true that a closer friendship between 
 France and Germany was rendered impossible by their 
 past historical relations ; no responsible French statesman 
 had ever made any advances in such a direction ; but peaceful 
 and correct relations could continue, and it might be hoped 
 that in both countries the feehng would grow that neither 
 had an interest in taking upon itself the tremendous risk 
 and the frightful misery of a war. In the field of industry 
 and commerce the countries might work together, and agree 
 perhaps on some colonial question. Germany had no thought 
 of intruding between France and Russia, nor between France 
 and England, nor of disturbing the friendship of France 
 and England. As the Franco-Russian aUiance had so far 
 not endangered peace, it might fairly be hoped that the 
 same thing might come to be predicable of the Anglo-French 
 Entente. But that Entente would become a danger to 
 peace unless it were combined with good relations between 
 the World-Powers and Germany. A policy of which the 
 foundation was the isolation of Germany, in order to cripple 
 her, would be a dangerous policy for the peace of Europe. 
 
 As to England, there existed no deep political difference 
 between her and Germany ; their commercial rivalry was 
 as compatible with good relations as was Germany's com- 
 mercial rivalry with Austria or Italy. Sensible people in 
 both countries should do their best to lay aside misundei- 
 standings and to promote mutual friendhness ; and in this 
 reference he expressed satisfaction at the recent reception 
 of the German burgomasters and journalists in England. 
 There was no such thing in Germany as hatred for England, 
 
THE ALGEgiRAS CONFERENCE 169 
 
 and any bad feeling there was in England for Germany was 
 due to the German Socialist Press, which had misrepresented 
 the objects of Germany's measures for her self-defence at 
 sea. The idea of the German Fleet being intended for an 
 attack on England was simply fooHsh. Had not the First 
 Lord of the Admiralty recently said that England had 
 never before been so strong at sea, and that she could meet 
 any combination of Powers ? Germany had no thought 
 of building a fleet so strong as England's, but it was her 
 right and duty to have a fleet corresponding to her extensive 
 trade interests and to her necessity of the defence of her 
 transmarine interests and her coasts. Why should she not 
 be as free to build ships as any other Power, including England 
 herself ? 
 
 He made light of Italy's anti-German attitude at the 
 Conference. He brushed aside as lies the stories of Germany's 
 designing expeditions against Tripoli or its Hinterland, or 
 of her marching from the Cameroons over TripoH to Trieste 
 with a view to annexing it ; these were pure fictions for 
 making Italy mistrustful of Germany. Serious Italian 
 poHticians had no wish to steer the Italian ship of State 
 from the quiet haven of the Triple Alliance into the stormy 
 sea of new combinations on an adventurous, dangerous, 
 and compassless voyage ; for they knew that Italy's detach- 
 ment from the Triple AlHance would increase the chance 
 of a great and general conflagration. For this reason the 
 continuance of that alliance was a European interest, as 
 furthering the interests of peace. 
 
 The Chancellor went on to disclaim all idea of German 
 intervention in Austria or in Russia. He had never known 
 a time when relations with Russia had been more peaceful 
 and correct, and he attributed this greatly to the frequent 
 interchange of visits between the Kaiser and the Czar. 
 They had dispersed the shadows of mistrust, and given to 
 each of them full confidence in the pacific intentions of the 
 other. 
 
 The Chancellor accompanied these assurances of Ger- 
 many's pacifism with a rebuke to the Pan-German League 
 
170 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 for their indiscriminate diatribes against all foreign nationali- 
 ties. He deprecated their too bold dreams of the future, 
 which only made more difficult the tasks of the present, 
 and everywhere provoked mistrust of Germany abroad. 
 Neither the German people nor their Kaiser nourished any 
 warlike desires. That the German Empire, since its founda- 
 tion thirty-five years before had kept at peace with all other 
 Powers was proof sufficient of its pacific policy. And in 
 future there would be no disturbance of the peace nor any 
 offensive initiative from the side of Germany. But time 
 and patience were needed for better Anglo-German relations, 
 owing to the long period of misunderstanding that lay 
 behind them. Too much importance had been laid on the 
 disharmony between the King of England and the German 
 Kaiser, for neither of them would suffer their personal 
 feelings to have any influence over their regard to the 
 political interests of their respective countries. King 
 Edward had lately been received in Germany with the respect 
 and honour due to him, not only as the chief of the British 
 people, but in accordance with his abiUties as a statesman ; 
 the Cronberg meeting had strengthened the good personal 
 relations between the two monarchs (Reden, ii. 315). 
 
 Nevertheless the Chancellor shared the belief universally 
 held in Germany that King Edward's poHcy was to encircle 
 Germany by a series of ententes with a ring of hostile Powers 
 (Deutsche Politik, 57-60). Nor was this belief confined to 
 Germany. The Belgian Ambassador in London wrote on 
 May 24, 1907 : ''It is plain enough that official circles in 
 England are pursuing in silence a hostile policy which aims 
 at the isolation of Germany, and that King Edward has not 
 disdained to place his personal influence in the service of 
 this idea ** (Belgian Diplomatic Documents, 30). Nor did 
 English opinion differ ; for, speaking of our entente with 
 France and our entente with Russia in 1908, Mr. Blunt 
 writes of these agreements as ** interpreted in Germany as 
 a design of ' hemming in,* which in fact it was," and as ** the 
 cause of the great European war six years later " (Diaries, 
 ii. 225). 
 
THE ALGEgiRAS CONFERENCE 171 
 
 On the other hand, Lord Redesdale, with much personal 
 knowledge of the King, treats the notion of his hostile 
 designs against Germany as a mere exhibition of German 
 spitefulness. "It is really amazing," he writes, " that the 
 King should have been suspected [by the German Press] 
 of hatred against Germany. Nothing could be farther 
 from the truth, as I have good reason to know. The King 
 delighted in his yearly visits to Germany ; he loved the 
 country, where he had many friendships, not to speak of 
 his near relations . . . and yet the newspaper writers were 
 never weary of girding at the King and proclaiming a hos- 
 tihty which was purely the invention of a mischief-making 
 spite " (Memoirs, ii. 766-7). So, too. Lord Esher, in constant 
 close connection with the King, treats as ridiculous the idea 
 " that the King initiated or planned the entente between 
 Great Britain and France " (Influence of King Edward, 57). 
 At the same time he writes that the idea of the grouping of 
 Great Powers for the sake of maintaining the status quo must 
 ever be connected with the name of King Edward, " who 
 presided, if not over its inception, over its partial triumph '* 
 (ib. 60). But this " grouping of the six most powerful 
 States of Europe into two apparently hostile camps," thought 
 by Lord Esher as ** on the whole some guarantee of peace," 
 was really bound to result in two camps hostile to one another. 
 It was inconceivable that Germany should not have re- 
 garded the King's grouping of Powers as other than an 
 attempt to surround her with enemies, knowing as she did 
 all the time of the continued plans, naval and military, 
 that were in preparation for a campaign against her, and 
 of the English intention of landing a large force on the Con- 
 tinent to fight for France. It could only be a question 
 of time before two such hostile camps came into collision 
 with one another. For if two single Powers, armed to the 
 teeth, are liable to be driven into war by their very fear 
 of one another, how much more must this be the case where 
 a group of armed Powers confronts another armed group : 
 for the simple reason that the wider the group, the wider 
 also will be the field for the interplay of conflicting interests. 
 
172 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 of divergent ambitions, of misunderstanding, suspicion, and 
 mistrust. The King might as well have hoped to grow figs 
 from thistles as expect to propagate peace from a system 
 of mutual fear. 
 
 There was, unfortunately, no answer from our side to 
 Prince Billow's November speech. The Foreign Office 
 under Sir E. Grey would respond to no advances from a 
 nation now accounted as " the enemy " ; only entire sub- 
 mission to France could be the price of better relations 
 with her rival ; and thus an opportunity was missed which 
 might have averted the war of 1914. 
 
 But the year was not to end in Germany without a great 
 political convulsion. The condition of the German colonies 
 came before the world for judgment. There were great 
 financial abuses, and the papers of England, France, America, 
 and Spain were full of articles headed " the German Panama.'* 
 It was assumed that millions had been stolen, and that no 
 honest German officials existed. It fell to the Chancellor 
 to put the other side of the shield. He contended that the 
 majority of the colonial officials were unsurpassed as a class 
 by any in the world for their loyalty, industry, conscientious- 
 ness and integrity ; it was wrong to look at bad cases through 
 a magnifying-glass, or to regard single cases as typical. 
 But he was bound to admit that some of the charges were 
 true ; he was for no hushing-up policy, but for inquiry into 
 the abuses. But at whatever cost the colonies must be kept ; 
 it was not a question of having colonies or not ; Germany 
 must colonize whether she wished or not, and notwithstand- 
 ing the difficulties that other nations from trade jealousy 
 might throw in her way. And Germany must have 29 
 mini on marks for her troops in South Africa (Reden, ii. 
 345-52). 
 
 This was the last straw. The Centre Party in the Reich- 
 stag proposed to reduce the 29 millions to 20, and the number 
 of troops to 2,500 : a compromise which was rejected by 
 the Government as insufficient for suppressing the actual 
 insurrection or for preventing a fresh one. The Chancellor 
 said that it was a question of national honour and of Ger- 
 
THE ALGEflRAS CONFERENCE 178 
 
 many's title to respect in the world ; Germany must see it 
 through ; the Government could not capitulate. So the 
 Centre Party coalesced with the Social Democrats, and 
 defeated the Government by 177 to 168 ; whereupon 
 the Chancellor read out the Kaiser's command for the 
 dissolution of the Reichstag, and the fate of Germany was 
 referred to the electorate. Both sides complained loudly 
 of unconstitutional action, the Government holding that 
 the attempt of the Reichstag to reduce the troops in South 
 Africa was an encroachment on the war-power which the 
 Constitution reserved for the Executive, whilst their adver- 
 saries maintained that the dissolution was an act of arbitrary 
 power, a sign of the personal rule of an autocrat. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 1907 
 THE *' COMING " WAR 
 
 The German Elections, conducted with more than their 
 customary excitement, ended in a surprising victory for 
 the Government. When the results became known on the 
 evening of January 25th, Berlin went rather wild. Patriotic 
 songs filled the air, and, when it was known that the Socialist 
 losses were more than a dozen, enthusiastic crowds rushed 
 to the Chancellor's palace in the Wilhelmstrasse, to be there 
 addressed by him from the balcony {Reden, iii. 240). On 
 February 5th the Kaiser, too, made a speech to a cheering 
 crowd, and his popularity in Germany was the cause of 
 surprise and alarm in other countries. His speech was, as 
 usual, interpreted as a threat : a continuation, thought 
 Baron Greindl, of the " campaign of calumny " waged 
 against him for some years past in the French, English, 
 and Russian Press [Belgian Diplomatic Documents, No. 23). 
 In England Baron Lalaing, Belgian Minister in London, 
 attests the disappointment felt by both political parties at 
 the unexpected electoral triumph of the German Govern- 
 ment (February 8, 1907). Only in some quarters did the 
 defeat of the Socialists afford some consolation ; as in the 
 Standard of January 29th, which declared that all the 
 civilized world owed a debt of gratitude to the Kaiser and 
 Prince Btilow for their courage in bearding, and for their 
 skill in defeating, the common Socialist enemy. 
 
 The Chancellor naturally made the most of his victory. 
 The Socialists had been reduced from 79 to 43. They and 
 the Centre Party came in for severe flagellation. They had 
 fought the election, he said in the Reichstag on February 
 
 174 
 
THE "COMING" WAR 175 
 
 25th, on the false issue of personal government, hoping so 
 to deceive the electors. But personal rule did not come 
 into the question ; it was a gross untruth to say there had 
 been unconstitutional action ; for the Federated Govern- 
 ments had a perfect right, with the consent of the Kaiser, 
 to dissolve the Reichstag if they thought it necessary for 
 the safety of the country. But the greatest lie of the 
 election had been the assertion that the Catholic religion 
 was threatened ; if there ever was a Government which 
 could not be charged with hostility to religion or Catholicism 
 it had been his, which had always stood for the equality 
 and toleration of all religions. If he had failed in his efforts 
 to unite all parties against the Social Democrats, it was the 
 fault of the Centre Party, which had been guilty of a moral 
 wrong in joining forces with a party that was for the 
 overthrow of everything that Christians held dear and 
 entertained a deadly hostility to the State and to the existing 
 order of civil society. So long as Social Democracy com- 
 bated the Monarchy, so long must every Minister with a 
 sense of duty take part against it. The Socialists had 
 disregarded his appeal of January 22, 1903, to keep to the 
 path of loyalty and reason, and to refrain from injuring the 
 feelings of the great majority of the German nation ; they 
 had with their idea of the general strike and of revolution 
 played a frivolous and reckless game. They had deserved 
 their defeat: the defeat of a narrow, dogmatic, and pusil- 
 lanimous party, which, despite all their talk of high culture, 
 practised an oppression and compulsion, and imposed an 
 intellectual yoke which the world had hardly known since 
 the Middle Ages. They had deserved their defeat for the 
 false prophecies they had made ; predicting first that the 
 new tariff would never come to pass ; then that no com- 
 mercial treaties would ever be made on its basis ; and lastly 
 that, if they were, they would prove injurious to industry. 
 And they had deserved their defeat because they put inter- 
 national aims above the national one, and placed the interests 
 of their party above those of their country (ib. iii. 6-28). 
 The contiguity of Germany to Russia goes far to explain 
 
176 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 the Chancellor's feelings about Socialism. For in Russia 
 Socialism had taken a most ugly development. Scarcely 
 a day passed without the news of some terrible murder, of 
 the plundering of Government property, or of the burning 
 by peasants of the houses or woods of their landlords (Ann. 
 Reg., 1907, 318). So perverted grew the moral sense that 
 in many Russian houses the most prized possession would 
 be an album of photographs of notorious murderers 
 (Schiemann, vi. 339). And with all this reign of terror, 
 which had lasted ceaselessly since the close of the Japanese 
 War, went an alarming wave of superstition. At one village 
 an old woman of eighty was killed by the peasants as a 
 witch [ib. vii. 169). In another village a young peasant 
 having dreamt that Antichrist had appeared in the person 
 of a two-year-old boy and told the Commune the same, the 
 Commune decided that the child must die. The parents 
 thereupon with no apparent reluctance gave up the child, 
 and the peasant prophet trod it to death (ib. vii. 315). 
 There was no discernible diminution of the anarchy in 
 Russia from the second Duma, which opened on March 2nd 
 and was again dissolved on June i6th. 
 
 Had Schopenhauer been alive, the year 1907 would have 
 borne abundant testimony to the claims of his pessimistic 
 philosophy. Turning from Russia to Turkey, he would have 
 pointed to the atrocities committed in Macedonia by Greek 
 or Servian or Bulgarian bands upon one another, and would 
 have asked what had the so-called Powers done to reduce 
 them. In France the colonial scandals would have attracted 
 his attention, with their tale of officials charged every week 
 with the waste of public money or with acts of gross cruelty. 
 And in Germany there were the worse moral scandals con- 
 nected with the names of Prince Eulenburg, Kuno Moltke, 
 and Count Hohenau. 
 
 So might the pessimist have roamed with satisfaction 
 over the world till he came to our own happy islands. There 
 he would have found a condition of subdued civil war ; 
 with the Liberals in office, but with the Unionists in power, 
 and with the House of Lords behind them to alter or reject 
 
THE "COMING" WAR 177 
 
 any measure that Mr. Balfour wished altered or rejected. 
 So it was that the question of the House of Lords began 
 to overshadow every other. Was a Liberal Government 
 only to exist or to act on the sufferance of an oligarchy 
 mainly of birth, more defiantly clothed with political supre- 
 macy than the Crown itself ? All the legislation of the 
 year was haunted by a sense of this antagonism and of the 
 necessity of its removal. It is true that after many years 
 a law was passed which made it legal for a man to marry 
 the sister of a deceased wife ; but measures of land reform 
 for Ireland and Scotland were either vetoed or changed 
 beyond all recognition. Under Lord Rosebery's auspices 
 the Liberal League, which had been quiet during 1906, 
 came to the front again, the once Liberal Prime Minister 
 on March 23rd disclaiming any obligation of allegiance to 
 the new Liberal Government, so that the Scottish Land 
 Bill found no more bitter opponent among the Conservatives 
 than it found in Lord Rosebery (Ann. Reg., 1907, 214). 
 The fashion grew of belittling all Liberal measures as only 
 introduced for the pleasure of a later quarrel with the 
 Lords : this was Mr. Balfour's charge on August 22nd 
 against the Small Landholders (Scotland) Bill; and the 
 Irish Councils Bill, which was speedily withdrawn by reason 
 of its prompt rejection by the Irish Nationalist Conference 
 of Dublin, was decried by the Attorney-General for Ireland 
 as introduced solely as affording material for a quarrel with 
 the Lords (ib. igoy, 170). The theory of our Constitution, 
 that no political system was so good as one where two 
 Legislatures pulled in different directions, was breaking 
 down ; and the ineffective resolution carried by 432 to 147 
 on June 26th for establishing more workable relations for 
 the two hostile Houses prepared the way for the Parliament 
 Act of 1911, which confined to one year the right of the 
 House of Lords to stay whatever legislation it regarded 
 as uncongenial. 
 
 And for some time the tide had begun to flow strongly 
 towards reaction, as shown by the defeat of the Progressives 
 at the London County Council elections of March 2nd, and 
 
 12 
 
178 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 by the leading newspapers, of whose unscrupulous mis- 
 representation of every action and motive of the Liberal 
 Government Mr. Churchill on May i8th, at Edinburgh, 
 vigorously complained. 
 
 As another base of attack against his Government the 
 Prime Minister on May 7th referred to the Colonial Con- 
 ference: for the first time called the Imperial Conference, 
 which lasted from April 15th to May 14th, and which 
 attacked free trade by striving chiefly for Colonial Pre- 
 ference ; that is, for a tax on all foreign imports into England, 
 without in return any promise of the remission of colonial 
 taxes on English imports to the Colonies. And the Con- 
 ference was used not merely as a lever for Tariff Reform or 
 Protection, but for the military aims of the National Service 
 League ; as when on May i6th, at the Queen's Hall, Mr. 
 Deakin, the Australian Premier, supported by Lord Milner 
 and Lord Roberts, strongly advocated compulsory military 
 service for the country. But as regards conscription or 
 protection, the Colonial Premiers were doomed to disappoint- 
 ment, and they returned to their respective colonies with 
 but little to show for their ill-advised intrusion into the 
 politics of the mother-country beyond their clearly expressed 
 wish to divert its course on to reactionary and imperialistic 
 lines. 
 
 But the chief impediment to reform was the great and 
 resistless development of militarism. The year began with 
 a general belief in impending war ; talk of the " coming 
 war ** was common both in England and France. For 
 talking to his troops of " the coming war " General Bailloud 
 was transferred from his command in the North of France 
 to one in the South {Ann. Reg., 1907, 277). As such belief 
 helps to bring to pass the thing believed in by producing 
 a spirit of fatalistic and effortless acquiescence in its reality, 
 it was a great misfortune that so leading a member of the 
 Cabinet as George Wyndham, the Irish Secretary, looked 
 upon a war with Germany as a certainty, " perhaps in five 
 years, perhaps in thirty " (Blunt, ii. 177, May 9th). This 
 belief in the inevitability of war, widely held and pro- 
 
THE "COMING" WAR 179 
 
 pagated, was fatal to all efforts to prevent it. And the war 
 atmosphere was increased by Lord Haldane's Territorial 
 and Reserve Forces Bill for recruiting additional auxiliary 
 forces ; it may be surmised that the expansion of our Army 
 had been insisted on by France as a condition of the con- 
 tinuance of the entente. These military reforms occupied 
 so much of Parliamentary time that as many as eight 
 measures had to be dropped altogether from the Govern- 
 ment programme on July 26th. It was contended that 
 recruits for the new Territorial Army would only be pledged 
 to voluntary service abroad ; compulsion was far from the 
 mind of the Army Council and the Defence Committee, 
 who were behind the War Secretary ; only Home Defence 
 was thought of, and the measure was falsely represented 
 rather as an entrenchment against conscription than as 
 a step towards it. But Lord Roberts on April 4th blessed 
 it at Birmingham as the greatest step yet taken towards 
 the creation of a National Army ; which, of course, was 
 bound to be a Conscript Army on the Continental model. 
 Those who objected to the whole scheme as tending to 
 promote jingoism were few and far between, and only spoke 
 to the winds. 
 
 A less hopeful atmosphere for the meeting of the second 
 Hague Conference could not have been imagined. Our 
 preparations for becoming a great military as well as the 
 greatest naval Power were hard to reconcile with the zeal 
 for disarmament affected by our Foreign Office. " The 
 English Press,'* wrote Baron Greindl on March 28th, *' pur- 
 sues its campaign of slander with greater violence than 
 ever. It sees the hand of Germany wherever anything 
 disagreeable happens to England. When necessary it invents 
 stories purely and simply, such as that of the alleged plan 
 for closing the North Sea.'* Some resentment was shown 
 at the first speech on international relations delivered by 
 Prince Biilow in the new Reichstag on April 30th. His 
 position was that, as Great Britain had made her partici- 
 pation in the Brussels Conference of 1874 conditional on 
 the exclusion from the discussions of the question of the 
 
180 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 capture of private property on sea, so Germany might do 
 about disarmament. The question might be left to the 
 particular Powers interested in the subject. Germany had 
 never abused her military strength, nor would ever do so. 
 It was better to take no part in unpractical discussions, 
 though any practical proposals would be considered At the 
 Hague Conference Germany would show that she honestly 
 supported all practical efforts for the promotion of peace, 
 civilization, and humanity {Reden, iii. 34-36). 
 
 This was a chilling speech, but it took its colour from 
 the circumstances of the time. Both France and England 
 had recently declared against any reduction of their fleets 
 (Schiemann, vii. 43), and in the fevered state of the world, 
 brought about by our commitments to France, there was 
 no real wish for disarmament anywhere. The foundations 
 of the Palace of Peace, Mr. Carnegie's gift to the world, 
 were laid on July 30th by M. de Nelidoff, the President 
 of the Hague Conference, but there was no moral sub- 
 structure for such a palace in the hearts of the rulers of 
 this world. 
 
 But the Chancellor's speech was doubtless much in- 
 fluenced by the recent travels of King Edward, whose every 
 movement gave fresh impulse to German apprehension. 
 From February 2nd to February 9th the King and Queen 
 stayed at Paris incognito as the Duke and Duchess of 
 Lancaster. Their visit was rather suddenly arranged, and 
 created some surprise. A feeling perceptible in France of 
 too great a subservience to British policy made it desirable 
 to fortify the entente. The King gave the German Ambas- 
 sador, Prince Radolin, the most pacifying assurances that 
 his journey had no other object than to afford recreation 
 to the Queen ; but with M. Clemenceau and the Minister 
 of War he dwelt on the necessity for France of keeping up 
 a strong Army and Navy. The visit, which sent the French 
 Press into ecstasies, threw the German Press into wild 
 alarm. M. Leghait, Belgian Minister at Paris, thought that 
 France, sincerely desirous of peace, would need great diplo- 
 macy to convince Germany that the ftpt^nU was in no 
 
THE "COMING" WAR 181 
 
 way directed against her ; and he deprecated the irritation 
 needlessly given to the Kaiser. The more serious papers, 
 he noted, were so conscious of the danger of the game that 
 they showed no joy at this "new demonstration of English 
 friendship " (Belgian Diplomatic Documents, No. 4, Feb- 
 ruary 10, 1907). But the Echo de Paris welcomed it as 
 a sort of answer to the revival of German Imperialism, 
 which was taken as signified by the decisive Conservative 
 victory at the recent German elections. The D chats gave 
 expression to the general French view that attributed the 
 entente, as did also Lord Esher, to King Edward person- 
 ally : *' With a very clear recognition of the necessities of 
 current politics and an admirable tact in their execution, 
 the King was the immediate author of the entente cordiale " 
 (The Times, February 4th). The remark of the Conser- 
 vative German Reichsbote that the King had gone to 
 see what was going on in his " branch establishment in 
 Paris " greatly offended the French Press. On February 6th 
 the King lunched with President Fallidres at the Elysee, 
 and there met all the chief members of the French Govern- 
 ment, including M. Clemenceau, the Prime Minister, and 
 M. Pichon, the Foreign Minister ; on February 8th he 
 lunched with the Marquis de Breteuil, with whom as Prince 
 of Wales the conception of a Triple Entente had long before 
 been a settled policy : little facts noticed in our own Press, 
 nor, therefore, likely to have passed unnoticed in Germany. 
 It was suspected that politics not less than French plays 
 were the attractions to Paris. 
 
 After spending most of March at Biarritz, the King, in 
 his yacht the Albert and Victoria, reached Carthagena 
 from Toulon on April 5th, being escorted thither by the 
 cruisers Lancaster and Suffolk, and met there, as arranged, 
 by the Atlantic Fleet. With him were Sir John Fisher 
 and Sir Charles (since Lord) Hardinge, permanent Under- 
 Secretary for Foreign Affairs. On April 8th there was a 
 banquet on the Spanish battleship Numangia, at which 
 King Alfonso referred in graceful terms to the King's 
 '* generous task of strengthening good feeling and harmony 
 
182 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 between all States/' and at which he conferred the Grand 
 Cross of the Order of Charles III on Sir Charles Hardinge, 
 on Sir John Fisher, and on Sir C. Drury, the Com- 
 niander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet, and Crosses 
 of the Order of Naval and Military Merit on all the com- 
 manders of the British warships. Sir Charles Hardinge 
 was then the King's ** special man, going everywhere abroad 
 with him, and fulfilling the functions appertaining to the 
 Secretary of State as Cabinet Minister " — as Sir Horace 
 Rumbold told Blunt {Diaries, ii. 183). All the diplomacy 
 of the time, said Sir Horace, was done by Hardinge and 
 the King ; Sir E. Grey, the Foreign Secretary, being only 
 their mouthpiece in the House of Commons (ib. ii. 213). 
 On April 9th the two Kings left their respective yachts 
 and visited one another's fleets, whilst their Ministers and 
 Ambassadors discussed international politics. The main 
 purport of the meeting was to dissipate certain Spanish 
 misgivings about France in connection with Morocco, and 
 to attach Spain more firmly to the British policy ; also to 
 arrange for the building of a new Spanish fleet under British 
 direction in Spanish harbours, and for a Spanish loan in 
 London for the building of the new battleships (Reventlow, 
 317). But in Berlin the King's visit to the King of Spain 
 was interpreted to mean, in Baron Greindl's words, " a 
 strategical move in the campaign undertaken personally, 
 with as much perseverance as success, by His Majesty 
 Edward VII, with a view to the isolation of Germany " 
 (April i8th). And this, no doubt, was the historical truth 
 of the matter. 
 
 The Carthagena visit was rightly connected with the 
 formation of the Anglo-Spanish agreement, which became 
 public on June 15th, for securing the status quo in the 
 Mediterranean and in Atlantic waters. It removed the old 
 sore about Gibraltar by recognizing our right to its posses- 
 sion. At the same time Spain made a similar agreement 
 with France about the Mediterranean ; and thus Spain was 
 drawn into the orbit of the entente, with at least her 
 neutrality assured in the " coming war." German surprise 
 
THE "COMING" WAR 183 
 
 and alarm were somewhat allayed by a declaration from 
 M. Pichon that the intention of these treaties was purely 
 pacific, and by telegrams from both England and France 
 denying any motive in them of hostility to Germany 
 (Schiemann, vii. 231-2). But the denial in the French and 
 English papers that any secret agreements accompanied the 
 treaties gave but little satisfaction, since such denials were 
 commonly made till the moment came when it became 
 profitable to disclose them. It had, for instance, been denied 
 that King Edward's visit to Carthagena had any political 
 purpose, but already American papers, like the New York 
 Herald, the New York Times, the Sun, and the World were 
 heading their articles with such expressions as " Germany's 
 Isolation," " Check to the Kaiser,'* etc. And of these 
 papers the Sun was derivative from the Matin, and the 
 Matin from the Daily Mail (ib. vii. 256). Perhaps, wrote 
 Count Reventlow, German public opinion exaggerated the 
 importance of these Mediterranean treaties, but it was a 
 right instinct which regarded them as a fresh step in 
 the encircling process ; King Edward was the " father " of 
 the Anglo-Franco- Spanish agreement, ably supported by 
 M. Jules Cambon, the French Ambassador at Madrid (319). 
 When the communications relating to this Triple Agree- 
 ment were presented by the Spanish Ambassador to the 
 German Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, with the 
 assurance of its wholly pacific nature, Herr von Miihlberg 
 interrupted him with the words, " Yes, I know ; we are 
 advancing towards an era of perpetual peace " ; and this 
 ironical remark well expressed the small degree of faith 
 placed by Germany in the alleged motives for the latest 
 move of the Allied diplomacy. 
 
 The King's intention to visit Italy after Spain was 
 doubtless the reason of Prince Billow's previous meeting 
 with the Italian Foreign Minister, Signer Tittoni, at Rapallo 
 on March 31st. Owing to the improved relations of Italy 
 and France to one another, Italy depended much less on 
 German support than she did when fear of an attack from 
 France induced her in 1882 to join the Triple AHiance ; 
 
184 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 so that, in view of the King's suspected attempt to win 
 Italy over to the camp of the Dual Entente, it was thought 
 desirable to intimate to the world that the Triple Alliance 
 was still in full vigour, and a force to be reckoned with by 
 Germany's enemies. So after an interview of an hour and 
 a half it was announced that over all the vital questions 
 of the day Germany and Italy found themselves in complete 
 accord. 
 
 Nevertheless, Italy was the weakest part of the Triple 
 Alliance, so that when on April i8th King Edward's yacht 
 passed through a line of twelve Italian battleships and 
 twelve Italian torpedo-boats, and the Kings of Italy and 
 of England met at Gaeta and embraced and kissed one 
 another, and Signer Tittoni had a twenty minutes' talk 
 with Sir C. Hardinge, the prevalent view taken in Germany 
 was that the meeting aimed at counteracting the effect of 
 the Conference at Rapallo. The Austrian Neue Freie Presse 
 took it as a fresh proof of the diplomatic duel between 
 England and Germany : which indeed it was. And the 
 Cologne Gazette, the organ of the National Liberal Party, 
 said that it would tend to make Germany and Austria 
 increase their armaments as provision against danger arising 
 from the Anglo-French Entente. Three days before the 
 Gaeta meeting, on April 15th, Bassermann, the National 
 Liberal leader, had at Magdeburg expressed the displeasure 
 the meeting caused in Germany. England, he complained, 
 was everywhere ; King Edward was everywhere ; in every 
 quarter of the world England was pursuing a policy un- 
 favourable to Germany. The days of Germany's influence 
 were past ; the Triple Alliance was in its dotage. Since the 
 Alge^iras Conference Germany had regarded Italy with the 
 greatest mistrust, since she could not feel sure that in case 
 of war Italy would admit a casus fcederis ; and all the time 
 that England was advocating disarmament she was in- 
 creasing her own armaments with the utmost precipitation. 
 Germany should let France know that she regarded the 
 limitation of her armaments as her own affair, and let 
 England know the same about her Navy. Germany did 
 
THE "COMING" WAR 185 
 
 not wish to use her Navy against England, but she would 
 ftght if forced to do so. She was resolved to be mistress 
 in her own house (The Times, April i8th). He asserted 
 that England had entangled Russia in a war with Japan 
 for her own interests (the same charge that was so often 
 made against the Kaiser), and had entered into an agree- 
 ment and military convention with France. 
 
 Prince Billow did what he could to pour oil on the 
 troubled waters, in his speech of April 30th. He deprecated 
 the doubts which had been cast on Italy's fidelity to the 
 alliance by the Gaeta meeting. As the Kaiser in all his 
 visits to the Mediterranean visited King Victor Emmanuel, 
 so it was natural for King Edward to do the same. Friendly 
 relations between Italy and England in nowise conflicted 
 with Italy's attachment to her allies. Direct and open 
 discussion would suffice to overcome all difficulties with 
 Italy ; all that Germany cared for was equal commercial 
 competition. This was her sole desire in Persia, and there- 
 fore she looked without disturbance on the recent Anglo- 
 Russian agreement about Persia, as also on their agreement 
 about their Asiatic boundaries in Thibet and Afghanistan. 
 Between Germany and England there were no disputes that 
 lay beyond the reach of friendly settlement ; nor was there 
 any cause for good relations between France and Germany 
 being disturbed ; he hoped for the gradual subsidence of 
 their mutual mistrust (Reden, iii. 38-9). 
 
 Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman on May 9th, at Man- 
 chester, fully recognized the candour and friendliness of 
 this speech, but it took some days before the German Press 
 assumed a calmer tone ; the French and German Press 
 exchanged bitter taunts ; whilst in Italy the offence taken 
 at an apparent claim on Germany's part to exercise a sort 
 of dictatorship over Italy's hospitalities to foreign guests 
 did more to shake the Triple Alliance than the Gaeta meeting 
 itself. But the King was a good deal more than an ordmary 
 foreign guest. Italy coveted Tripoli from Turkey, and 
 such an annexation of Tripoli as was crowned with success 
 in 1911-12 was only staved off in 1908 by the influence of 
 
186 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 the German Kaiser on the Sultan. Both the French 
 Government and our own had the thought that by acqui- 
 escence in Italy's ambition " Italy might be won over ar.d 
 detached from the German- Austrian Alliance *' {Blunt, li. 
 208). Was not this the secret of Gaeta ? 
 
 A caricature, called the "Tiger Hunt/' in a Japanese 
 paper about this time, cleverly expressed the international 
 situation. An elephant with the features of King Edward 
 bearing on his back a Russian soldier, an English one, a 
 French one, and a Japanese, were in pursuit of a tiger with 
 the face of William II. Cheradame accepted this as a fair 
 representation of a coming Quadruple Entente against Ger- 
 many. Did not the recent increase of the Japanese Army 
 indicate a readiness to take part in a war if Germany 
 declared one ? In forty days the Japanese mercantile 
 marine of 100 vessels, carrying each 1,000 men and 
 equipment, could land 100,000 men at Marseilles, in easy 
 proximity to the battlefield (Schiemann, vii. 215-16). Wild 
 as such an alliance then seemed, it was destined to come 
 to pass, and even then it was not many days before there 
 were apprehensions in Germany of such an alliance as 
 actually in course of formation (ib. vii. 222). 
 
 It was on June loth of this summer that Japan signed 
 a short treaty with France, and on July 30th a treaty with 
 Russia. Both these treaties, for the little that such phrases 
 were worth, professed the same desire for the independence 
 and integrity of China and for the equality of trade in that 
 country ; but these fresh treaties, together with our own 
 of 1902, completed the quadruple ring round China of Japan, 
 France, Russia, and Great Britain, for the benefit of what 
 was called the China Pooling Syndicate, to the exclusion 
 of Germany (Pooley's note to Hayashi's Memoirs, 215-16). 
 It marked a further step in the policy of the isolation of 
 Germany which during these years so greatly embittered 
 the international situation in Europe. 
 
 At the close of May an effort was made to improve 
 Anglo-German relations by a visit from a number of English 
 journaUsts to Berlin, in return of the visit to England of 
 
THE "COMING" WAR 187 
 
 the German journalists in 1906. On May 29th there was 
 a banquet at the BerHn Zoo, at which Mr. Spender made 
 the leading English speech, and Dr. Miihlberg, the German 
 Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, responded in a friendly 
 tone, assuring his hearers for the hundredth time that the 
 Navy Bill of June 14, 1900, only aimed at creating a Navy 
 for the defence of the German coasts and German sea trade ; 
 it was not built for the conquest of fresh territory, as Ger- 
 many did not desire territorial expansion (The Times, May 
 30th). In both Asia and Africa her only concern was for 
 the " open door " for trade, and this was a point of union 
 between England and Germany ; a connecting bridge which 
 they might hope to cross together. Sir Francis Lascelles, 
 our Ambassador at Berlin, made a sympathetic response ; 
 Sir Francis was all for friendlier relations, and made a sound 
 pacifist speech ; but it seems probable that he was never 
 forgiven, as on June 27, 1908, he was reported as being 
 '* out of favour now with the King, as being too German 
 in his sentiments " (Blunt, ii. 213). On May 30th the 
 journalists were the guests of the Berlin Chamber of Com- 
 merce, and there were loyal toasts to King Edward and to 
 the Kaiser. 
 
 On May 31st the journalists were conveyed by special 
 train to Potsdam to witness the Spring Parade of the garrison. 
 Then after lunch in the Orangerie the Kaiser arrived and 
 ** conversed in a very friendly manner with the principal 
 guests." The travellers then laid wreaths on the tombs 
 of the Emperor and Empress Frederick. Equally cordial 
 welcomes were accorded to them at Dresden, Munich, Frank- 
 fort, Cologne and Rudesheim, before leaving for Copenhagen. 
 The visit was a great success in every way. 
 
 All this was in the right direction ; but The Times 
 frowned on the whole proceedings. In the past, said its 
 Own Correspondent, every demonstrative German chamade 
 had been the invariable, and doubtless conscious, prelude 
 to some aggressive enterprise of foreign policy. The hope 
 of Germany was a vain one, that the clarification of English 
 opinion might even at the eleventh hour be arrested by an 
 
188 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 exchange " of thickly buttered compHments " [The Times, 
 May 31st). In pursuance of this irreconcilable attitude, 
 The Times, the Morning Post, and the Daily Mail refrained 
 from sending any representative to the Berlin festival of 
 harmony (Schiemann, vii. 217). If those patriotic papers 
 could prevent it, there should be no renewal of good relations 
 between the two countries. It was true, of course, that in 
 some German papers there had been some ugly things said 
 of King Edward's visit to Carthagena and Gaeta ; but, if 
 other Enghsh journals seized the chance of burying the 
 hatchet, for what motive but a preference for an attitude 
 of determined hostiUty did The Times, the Daily Mail, and 
 the Morning Post abstain from a movement which at least 
 held out some chance, however slight, of promoting the 
 maintenance of peace ? 
 
 Professor Schiemann justly remarked that the control of 
 the daily Press was a more important problem of the present 
 day than the Hague Conference itself and more difficult 
 of solution than the problem of disarmament or of an inter- 
 national tribunal. People talked of a " free " Press, but 
 nothing in pubHc Hfe was more involved in dependence than 
 the German Press : dependence on party, dependence on 
 finance, dependence on interest (vii. 143). And the remark 
 is true of all countries. From time to time feelers were 
 thrown out for a possible entente between France and 
 Germany, and the idea had been kept alive since the 'eighties 
 of the nineteenth century, but all such attempts had been 
 wrecked by the French identification of patriotism with 
 revenge (ib. vii. 135). When in the spring the French 
 doctor Mauchamp had been murdered in Marakesch, though 
 Germany expressed satisfaction at the swift steps taken by 
 France to obtain compensation from the Sultan of Morocco, 
 some French papers suggested that Mauchamp's companion, 
 Dr. Holtzmann, had instigated the murder (ib. vii. 120). 
 Count Reventlow says that the French reports of Germany's 
 having instigated the natives to the crime were taken up 
 by our Press with bitter violence (Reventlow, 320). In 
 consequence of the murder the French besieged Ushda ; 
 
THE "COMING" WAR 189 
 
 but M. Pichon, the French Foreign Minister, disclaimed all 
 thought of conquest, and undertook to limit military action 
 to the recovery of the satisfaction demanded. 
 
 The hope that the Algegiras Act of 1906 would lead to 
 an understanding between France and Germany, and to 
 a relaxation of the European tension, came to nothing ; 
 for the tension only increased, and it seemed to Germany 
 that the English Press-baiting of Germany became not 
 only more decided in expression but less scrupulous in 
 its methods {Reventlow, 323). The hostihty of our Press 
 to Germany, indeed, founded on the imputed German 
 design of overthrowing England's world-power, seemed to 
 Germany too incomprehensible to be taken as sincere ; the 
 purpose seemed to be so to accustom the EngHsh mind, by 
 constant repetition, to the idea that a sudden blow on the 
 German Fleet, as the source of danger, would seem but an act 
 of legitimate self-defence (Schiemann, vii. 172). Against this 
 drift of the Press it was to little purpose that the Westminster 
 Gazette, regarded as the organ of our Government, argued 
 that only a small number of EngUshmen were determinedly 
 anti-German, as they had been anti-French a few years 
 before ; or that the great majority of Englishmen had 
 never wished the entente with France to be used as a weapon 
 against Germany {ih, vii. 262). For in such a matter it 
 is the few, not the many, that count. Nor were the speeches 
 made in the Lords and Commons in early March forgotten, 
 in which the possibility was discussed of a piratical attack 
 by German squadrons on our coasts, " as if we were a nation 
 of corsairs " {ih. vii. 99). And indeed, if such things are 
 possible, it is not a case of rattling back into barbarism ; 
 we are there already. 
 
 Conversations which took place at Kiel on June 28th 
 between the Kaiser and Prince Biilow and M. Etienne, a 
 former French Minister, following the cordial speech by 
 the Kaiser a few months earUer to M. Jules Cambon, on 
 presenting his credentials as the new French Ambassador 
 to BerHn, gave fresh rise to rumours of a Franco-German 
 entente, but nothing resulted, nor was anything Hkely to 
 
190 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 result so long as France clung to her policy and her hopes 
 of revanche. Of more importance than the meetings with 
 M. Etienne was the Kaiser's meeting with the Czar at 
 Swinemiinde in early August. 
 
 This meeting had been arranged long before ; for so 
 long ago as June 14, 1906, the Kaiser had alluded to their 
 meeting at Swinemiinde, " where we shall try to be a merry 
 company " (Letter 56). 
 
 In his letter of New Year's good wishes of February 2, 
 1907, the Kaiser had hoped that he and the Czar might 
 be able to meet somewhere on the " water," where Prince 
 Henry would be happy *' to show you the fleet under his 
 flags." In face of the efforts to draw Russia on to the 
 side of France and England, it seemed more than ever 
 necessary to court the favour of the Czar. So on August 3rd 
 the " merry company " duly met, the Czar and the Kaiser 
 being accompanied by their respective Ministers, Isvolsky 
 and Prince Biilow, avowedly for political discussion (Schie- 
 matin, vii. 299). The German Fleet in its full strength of 
 twenty-three ships indicated to the Czar, as threat or pro- 
 mise, the reality of Germany's growing power on the sea, 
 and the episode was regarded in certain Russian circles as 
 a comforting sign that Russia was not too far committed 
 to England and France, but was tending to return to her 
 old German connection. A few days later, on August 8th, 
 the Kaiser arrived at Wilhelmshohe, where on August 12th 
 he was joined by Prince Biilow. It may be guessed that 
 they had much discussion about the meeting with the King 
 of England, which was expected in two days' time. 
 
 The King reached Wilhelmshohe, near Cassel, as ex- 
 pected, on August 14th. It was one of the many occasions 
 on which he was accompanied by Sir Charles Hardinge, the 
 governing thought of whose diplomacy was apprehension 
 of the growth of the German navy and a resolution by every 
 possible means to check its further growth. This was con- 
 spicuously shown the following year (1908) on the occasion 
 of the King's visit to his nephew at Cronberg, when the 
 menacing language employed to the Kaiser by Sir Charles, as 
 
THE "COMING" WAR 191 
 
 spokesman for the King, so sorely tried the temper of their 
 Imperial host (Repington's First World War, ii. 23-4). But of 
 this one day's visit no unpleasantness is recorded ; the naval 
 question was apparently not stirred, nor is there reason to 
 doubt that the meeting did something towards lessening the 
 jealousy roused by the King's recent visit to the King of 
 Italy ; the Kaiser sparing himself no pains to welcome 
 his uncle ** with every mark of distinction and considera- 
 tion." Nothing could have exceeded the cordiality of the 
 toasts they interchanged nor the nobility of the sentiments 
 they expressed ; but of course the degree of correspondence 
 between their words and their thoughts no one could measure. 
 
 But as the King was on his way to Marienbad, taking 
 Ischl en route, the meeting with the Kaiser only lasted foi 
 a day, and the King continued his journey the same night. 
 He was met at Gm linden on August 15th by the Austrian 
 Emperor, Francis Joseph, with whom and with Sir Charles 
 Hardinge a long interview preceded the usual public 
 announcement that complete agreement had been reached 
 about reforms in Macedonia. What else was talked of 
 was left to conjecture. It was natural to surmise that 
 there was some hope of detaching Austria from her bondage 
 to the German Alliance. Was her loyalty unassailable ? 
 Her feelings towards Germany were undoubtedly cooling. 
 The Austrian Foreign Minister, Baron von Arenthal, had 
 met the Italian Foreign Minister, Signor Tittoni, at Desio 
 in July, and proclaimed to the world the identity of Austrian 
 and Italian interests and the continuance of their alliance. 
 But Austria was annoyed with the German Kaiser for 
 having spoken of her in 1906 as having played the part 
 of a " brilliant second " at the Alge^iras Conference. 
 
 The King continued his journey to Marienbad for his 
 cure, and there remained till September 7th. There it was 
 that one day, on leaving the Hotel Weimar for a motor 
 drive, he picked up a stick for an old woman who had dropped 
 it, politely raising his hat at the same time (The Times, 
 August 20th). But of more historical importance than this 
 touching incident was M. Clemenceau's visit on August 
 
192 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 2 1st, who motored over from Carlsbad to lunch with the 
 King. The visit, though " susceptible of a political in- 
 terpretation," was declared to be informal ; but it was 
 significant that Isvolsky, the Russian Foreign Minister, also 
 motored over from Carlsbad on September 5th and had 
 a talk with the King, declaring soon afterwards that in his 
 opinion the world had seldom worn so peaceful an aspect 
 {The Times, September 13th). But that is the common 
 diplomatic convention. And the concentration of 86 per 
 cent, of our fleet in home waters, with so many as 
 twenty-six battleships and fourteen armed cruisers facing 
 the North Sea, failed to be taken in Germany as a symbol 
 of endearment (Schiemann, vii. 293). 
 
 On October i6th Isvolsky arrived in Paris for a ten 
 days' visit, during which he saw much of the leading French 
 statesmen, and possibly met Sir John Fisher, who returned 
 from Paris to London on October i8th. It is difficult to 
 think that all these meetings and movements had nothing 
 to do with the Anglo-French-Russian combination against 
 Germany. 
 
 And whilst the diplomatic world was thus striving to 
 keep Europe at peace or hatching plans for a most possible 
 war, the second Conference at the Hague was labouring 
 over those schemes for the regulation of the methods of 
 slaughter which were predestined to end in such inefficient 
 and disappointing conclusions. It was a curious fact that 
 the French and Spanish squadrons were bombarding Casa- 
 blanca at the very moment when the Conference was passing 
 a resolution against the bombardment of undefended towns. 
 But that war is as little likely to be mitigated as it is likely 
 to be abolished so long as powerful armament firms depend 
 on its continuance for their princely profits is the growing 
 conviction of most thoughtful people. 
 
 Military alliances are of the nature of clouds which 
 coalesce for a time and then melt away, and it is probable 
 that the terror of the Triple AUiance would in time have 
 faded away of itself had King Edward and his advisers 
 been content with the old policy of Gladstone and Lord 
 
THE "COMING" WAR 198 
 
 Salisbury of keeping aloof from Continental alliances. 
 The sedulous building up of a hostile counter-alliance 
 avowedly against the Central Powers only threw Gernxany 
 into a state of fever from which war alone could ultimately 
 give relief. But for the time nothing could have surpassed 
 the success of the King's diplomacy. The great hope had 
 been to turn the Dual Entente into a Triple Entente by 
 union with Russia. Professor Schiemann on April 3rd 
 noted the *' quite unusual manifestations of honour ** 
 recently shown to a Russian squadron visiting England 
 (vii. 128). King Edward telegraphed to the Admiralty 
 to invite some Russian officers and soldiers from Ports- 
 mouth to London, and on March 26th twenty Russian 
 officers and some hundred sailors became the guests of the 
 Admiralty, and were f^ted in the usual way, crowds cheer- 
 ing them on their arrival at Victoria, and giving them an 
 ovation at the Alhambra. Count Reventlow saw a politi- 
 cal meaning in this enthusiastic reception (308), and 
 the episode was doubtless a prelude to the Convention 
 which on the last day of August startled the world by the 
 close connection it established between ourselves and a 
 Government that had for so many years been our greatest 
 bugbear. By this Convention both Powers, whilst pledging 
 themselves to respect Persia's independence and integrity, 
 and to maintain peace there and the freedom of trade, 
 divided Persia into three zones, of which the northern was 
 to be under Russian influence, the southern under British, 
 and the middle left to Persia. Russia recognized our special 
 interests in the Persian Gulf, and came to terms with us 
 about Afghanistan and Thibet {Reventlow, 308). For the 
 sake of peace a definite division of political and commercial 
 claims between Russia and ourselves was better than con- 
 stant contact and friction in the same territory, and the 
 agreement put a stop to a contemplated Russian railway 
 which might have endangered India. Sir E. Grey, at Berwick 
 in December, spoke of the Convention as starting a new era 
 of friendship and peace. But we have the evidence of the 
 Russian Foreign Minister, Isvolsky, that the new grouping 
 
 13 
 
194 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 of the Powers which resulted this year and the next by the 
 union of Russia with the Dual Entente only caused Germany 
 and the Kaiser to cling more firmly than ever to their 
 Austrian ally, and to confirm the Kaiser's belief in the 
 design of his enemies to isolate Germany (Siebert's Akent- 
 stiicke, 699-701, July 2 and November 12, 1909). How 
 much reason there was for this belief was shown by the 
 continued attempts by King Edward on the loyalty of the 
 Austrian Emperor to the Triple Alliance. Prince Biilow 
 took his habitual line of making light of the Agreement as 
 not injurious to Germany (Reden, iii. 75-6). Even Professor 
 Schiemann argued at the end of the year that in England's 
 alliances and agreements Germany saw no danger to herself ; 
 that the French Entente made absolutely no change in 
 the relations of the Powers ; that the Mediterranean treaties 
 and the alliances with Japan did not affect Germany ; and 
 that if, as a result of the Anglo-Russian agreement, England 
 felt safer in India, and Russia had no English rivalry 
 to fear in Central Asia, Germany welcomed the fact 
 (vii. 418, December 25, 1907). But one may doubt whether 
 this indifference was quite sincere. In certain German 
 quarters the Convention appeared in the light of another 
 link in the chain that was being tightened round Germany. 
 And that it had an anti-German origin is proved by a letter 
 of Count Benckendorff to Isvolsky, dated February 26, 191 1, 
 in which he wrote of it as indisputably intended to unite 
 English and Russian endeavours in preventing Germany 
 from getting a footing in Persia, lest her commercial in- 
 terests there should assume a political character {Siebert, 348) : 
 a fear that governed all the negotiations about the Bagdad 
 railway from 1907 onwards. It was said that the English 
 Army was enraptured at the entente with Russia [Schiemann, 
 vii. 323) ; but, if so, the rapture probably arose less from 
 sheer love of Russia than from the opposite emotion towards 
 Germany. Lord French was sent on a mission to Russia 
 in October, where he visited several of the larger Russian 
 towns ; but he only went ostensibly as a tourist and to 
 study military conditions, though it was not unreasonable 
 
THE "COMING" WAR 195 
 
 to guess that important military conversations relieved the 
 tedium of his studies. 
 
 In the same month of October a remarkable article in 
 the Edinburgh Review defended the project of the Bagdad 
 railway, pointing out the immense benefit likely to accrue 
 to the world from the probably consequent restoration of 
 order and cultivation in the regions of the ancient Baby- 
 lonian and Assyrian Empires ; throwing just ridicule on 
 the alarmist predictions raised by such books as Ch^radame's 
 Question d' Orient (1903) of a German occupation of Asiatic 
 Turkey and of a German advance upon India ; and advo- 
 cating the allowance of a fair trial of the German experiment. 
 But our cherished alarms about the safety of India were 
 not to be dispersed in so easy a fashion, and the only apparent 
 result of the article was the temporary satisfaction it gave 
 in Germany {Schiemann, vii. 348). 
 
 Morocco remained through the year a permanent possi- 
 bility of war. On May ist Professor Schiemann wrote that 
 nothing but ill-will could still maintain that Germany wished 
 to adopt an attitude hostile to France ; nothing was farther 
 from her wish ; she was resolved not to go beyond the 
 Algegiras Act, which meant, beyond the claim for economic 
 equality. But she must protest against the error that she 
 was in a position that compelled her to lean on France, or 
 that France was in a position to impose conditions upon 
 her (Schiemann, vii. 160-1). The rising about this time 
 of Mulai Hafid, who proclaimed himself Sultan in place of 
 his ten years younger brother, was rightly recognized as a 
 highly dangerous event, but towards the end of May matters 
 had changed for the better by the Sultan's recognition of 
 the French claims for compensation, and by his taking in 
 hand himself the suppression of the rising in Marakesch 
 (ih. vii. 208-9). In July M. Pichon's declaration that 
 France took her stand on the Alge9iras Act, and that there 
 were no diplomatic troubles to fear, gave much relief ; and 
 the hope even gained ground in Germany that she and 
 France might yet come to live at peace together, their 
 conduct at the Hague Conference having shown that in 
 
196 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 large questions of international politics it was possible for 
 them to go hand in hand together (ib. vii. 291). 
 
 But the lull was of brief duration. August began with 
 the murder of Europeans in Casablanca, and with a wild 
 outburst of Islamitic fanaticism. Nothing had been done 
 since the Act of Alge^iras to organize the police force in 
 Casablanca in accordance with the Act. France and Spain 
 sent ships and troops, and their action was regarded by all 
 the Powers with pacifying unanimity (ib. vii. 303). The 
 future depended on the wisdom and moderation of France, 
 and for this hope great confidence was placed in M. Pichon. 
 Germany, though regretting that France and Spain had 
 not proceeded more rapidly with their police reforms at 
 Casablanca, regarded the events with no uneasiness, though 
 questioning whether the bombardment of open villages was 
 a necessity of their war measures (ib. vii. 310). It was 
 admitted that M. Pichon had been loyal to the Alge^iras 
 Act, and it was hoped that eventually Germany and France 
 would co-operate industrially in the country. But the trouble 
 dragged on, and French influence extended no farther than 
 French guns and French francs could reach (ib. vii. 325). 
 The civil war between the brothers continued, to the great 
 injury of trade, and with httle prospect of a return to normal 
 conditions. The French troops had soon spread inland 
 from Casablanca, and by the end of the year there were 
 over 10,000 French soldiers in Morocco ; for whom Morocco 
 was required to pay, and to mortgage territory for repay- 
 ment of a loan (Reventlow, 324). 
 
 The King and the Kaiser had met in mid-August at 
 Wilhelmshohe, and it was there probably arranged that 
 the nephew should return his uncle's visit by coming to 
 England in November. The Times showed its displeasure, 
 reproaching Prince Biilow on October loth with feigning 
 a wish for an understanding with England whilst encourag- 
 ing the reptile German Press in its attacks ; he had come to 
 reaUze the strength of our position due to the Anglo-French 
 entente and the Anglo-Russian agreement, and the un- 
 readiness of the German Fleet. The Times hoped that 
 
THE "COMING" WAR 197 
 
 Berlin regretted its attitude in the Boer War ; we were 
 ready to forgive but not to forget, provided German repent- 
 ance was sincere, and that could only be proved by advances 
 to our friends the French. So far the virtuous Pecksniff 
 of our Press ; for which it was rebuked by our Liberal 
 organs. The Kaiser and Kaiserin duly arrived in London 
 on November 13th, whence they proceeded to Windsor 
 Castle for a few days. Count Benckendorff informed Isvolsky 
 on November 19th of the conversations there held about 
 the Bagdad railway between the Kaiser and Baron Schoen 
 on the one side and the English Ministers on the other. 
 Such a railway, it was feared in Russia, would open up 
 Persia to the political influence and to the commerce of 
 Germany ; England and France were equally hostile, and 
 Isvolsky wished his best thanks conveyed to Sir E. Grey 
 for his pro- Russian attitude in the matter (Siebert's Akten- 
 stiicke, 319). From Windsor the Kaiser proceeded to High- 
 cliffe, near Bournemouth, for a few weeks, returning to 
 Potsdam on December 14th. His reception in England left 
 nothing to be desired in the welcome accorded to him by 
 all classes on all occasions. There were the inevitable 
 banque tings and speech-makings ; and the City of London 
 presented him with an Address in a finely wrought golden 
 casket. But the speech that made most impression was 
 his own at the Guildhall on November 13th. Recalling the 
 speech he had made in the same place, sixteen years before, 
 in 189 1, when he had alluded to the historic friendship 
 between England and Germany, which had so often united 
 both countries in the causes of liberty and of justice, and 
 had added with marked emphasis, " My aim above all is 
 the maintenance of peace," he hoped that history would 
 do him the justice of saying that he had remained true to 
 that undertaking ever since. 
 
 It was thought that the Kaiser's visit was of little or 
 no political importance, inasmuch as the German Chancellor 
 had not accompanied his master to England. But as a 
 matter of fact the whole of the Kaiser's three weeks in 
 England were spent in constant and " feverish " efforts 
 
198 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 for an Anglo-German rapprochement, at the expense of 
 the Anglo-French and Anglo-Russian Ententes. vSo wrote 
 Count Benckendorff on February 3, 1909, who adds the 
 evidence in a letter of November 25, 1908, that in these 
 efforts the Kaiser found himself up against a wall in London 
 (Siebert, 717, 721). The subservience of our diplomacy to 
 the interests of France and Russia admitted of no modifi- 
 cation ; nor is it a fair matter for surprise that the Kaiser, 
 in his letters to the King, often questioned in terms that 
 called down upon him his uncle's rebukes the friendliness 
 of the King's Ministers and of the British Press. Yet the 
 visit was not without good effects : in Germany it was 
 thought to have been even more beneficial than the visit 
 of the English journalists to Berlin in May (Schiemann, 
 viii. 5) ; so that Lord Morley was undoubtedly right in 
 alluding to the Kaiser's visit as " a great event " since it 
 " would much improve the chances of a little decent calm 
 all over Europe, which sadly needed it." Lord Morley saw 
 much of the Kaiser at Windsor, and was surprised by his 
 gaiety, freedom, and good humour ; adding that the one 
 chief impression that he had made on everybody's mind 
 was the sincerity of his wish for peace and his will to make 
 it (Recollections, ii. "237-9). The Kaiser agreed with Lord 
 Morley on the good effect of his visit. Writing to the Czar 
 on December 28, 1907, he thought that he had " removed 
 many courses [causes] of misunderstanding and of distrust, 
 so that the atmosphere is cleared and the pressure on the 
 safety valve relieved." But the Kaiser's quite private and 
 confidential piece of news to the Czar, that London was 
 getting very nervous about Japan, fearing the dilemma, in 
 case of a Japanese-American war, of either having to side 
 with America and so risk the loss of India, or of quarrellmg 
 with America, shows how charged with electricity the atmo- 
 sphere still remained. The Kaiser thought that Japan, m 
 spite of our alliance, was quietly undermining India, which 
 perhaps she would attack before attacking the Philippines ; 
 British naval and military officers had spoken to him with 
 open disgust of the alhance with Japan. Nor can it be 
 
THE "COMING" WAR 199 
 
 denied that a recent Imperialist speech of Count Okuma, an 
 ex-Premier of Japan, in which he spoke of 300 millions of 
 oppressed Indians as looking for Japan's protection, had 
 produced a great sensation, which the Kaiser compared to 
 the effect of " a Shimose shell " in London. This was his 
 secret information for the Czar personally, so that he might 
 have his eyes open for possible developments {Letter 58). 
 
 It seems undoubted that the Kaiser's visit to Windsor 
 did much to improve our strained relations with Germany. 
 Professor Schiemann expressed with grace and gratitude 
 his country's sincere thankfulness " to our English cousins " 
 for their friendly reception. And the better tone of the 
 English Press, mainly of the Liberal Press, gave much 
 satisfaction in Germany [ih. vii. 368, 406, November 20th). 
 The National Review, however, continued irreconcilable, 
 publishing in its November number an article entitled 
 " Invasion," from the pen of the Military Correspondent of 
 The Times (Colonel Repington), full of idle alarms, and 
 insistent on our taking the initiative with our Navy. This 
 visit of the Kaiser to his uncle at Windsor was the only 
 visit to Windsor during the King's reign ; so that Mr. 
 Legge's incredible story of the King's knocking the Kaiser 
 down at Windsor Castle must have occurred on this occasion 
 or not at all (King Edward, the Kaiser, and the War, 51) ; and 
 so far the name of Mr. Legge's informant has remained 
 undisclosed. Mr. Legge's statement may be true that 
 occasionally the King's " indignation at some unlooked-for 
 occurrences was so great that it momentarily overmastered 
 him " ; but only the evidence of an eye-witness could claim 
 credence for such an illustration of the assertion. 
 
 It was fortunate that Sir John Fisher consistently threw 
 ridicule on the naval scare as sustained by such organs as 
 the National Review. Few of Sir John's services to his 
 country were greater than his protection of the King from 
 the naval alarmists, who kept the nation in a chronic fever 
 about our liability to invasion. His speech at the Guild- 
 hall on November 9th poured scorn on the popular delusion ; 
 and it accorded with what he wrote to Lord Esher on 
 
200 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 October 7, 1907 : "In regard to the Invasion Bogey, about 
 which I am now writing to you, how curious it is that from 
 the German Emperor downwards their breasts were stricken 
 with fear that we were going to attack them " (Memories, 
 181-2). And considering that on August 22, 1907, the Admi- 
 ralty official figures could point to 123 British destroyers 
 against Germany's 48, and to 40 submarines on our side 
 to one on Germany's ; and considering that Sir George 
 Clarke, Secretary of the Imperial Defence Committee, had 
 declared our Navy to be stronger than it had ever been in 
 all our previous history, the prevalent alarm seemed to 
 Sir John fictitious. If he admitted the necessity of a pre- 
 dominant Navy, it was not only for the purpose of keeping 
 open our communications with our dependencies, but for 
 the purpose of " allaying the fears of the old women of 
 both sexes (to use a phrase applied by Lord St. Vincent 
 to the alarmists of his day) in regard to the invasion of 
 England or to the invasion of the Colonies " [Memories, 
 181). Lord St. Vincent had wittily said, in answer to 
 a question of the possibility of an invasion, that, though he 
 could not answer as to an invasion on land, he could posi- 
 tively assert that it would never take place by sea ; and 
 Sir John was of the same mind. Nevertheless he believed 
 in the reality of the German menace and in the necessity 
 of meeting it by a counter-menace ; he confessed himself 
 as belonging neither to the diplomatists, whom he con- 
 sidered senile, nor to the politicians, whom he thought 
 liars ; but he professed himself of " the common-sense 
 view " that our intervention in " any very great Conti- 
 nental struggle " would be most unwise ; he presumably did 
 not realize how deeply we had been bound by our secret 
 diplomacy to the fortunes of France. He relates an incident 
 of a memorable interview between himself, Lord Esher, and 
 the King on board the royal yacht when the King " stamped 
 on the idea (that then enthused the War Office mind) of 
 England being once more engaged in a great Continental 
 war " (ih. 211-12). The King did not share the War 
 Office wish for war, but the question was whether the 
 
THE "COMING" WAR 201 
 
 diplomacy he pursued would not rather produce than 
 avert it. 
 
 The King had supported Sir John Fisher in his schemes 
 of naval reform against all opposition, and in return few 
 men of the time exercised more influence over the King 
 than Sir John. A letter from the King received in December, 
 1908, the happy recipient spoke of as " a dear letter," and 
 commented on the writer, " Isn't he a sweet ! '* (Memories, 
 187). Their epistolary correspondence was constant, and 
 it is greatly to be deplored that Lord Fisher burnt all but 
 a few of the royal letters he had received from the King. 
 In so doing he says that he followed the advice and the 
 example of Lord Knollys {ih, 2). Blunt was informed by 
 Lady C. that Lord Knollys " was left heir to all the King's 
 papers and correspondence, and knew absolutely every- 
 thing of the King's secrets, having been entrusted with the 
 keys, while he lived, of every box. Most of these secrets 
 will die with Lord Knollys " {Diaries, ii. 325-6). Con- 
 sidering how much light this correspondence would have 
 thrown on the actions and opinions of the King during his 
 reign, such wholesale destruction of it is of the nature of 
 a sin against history. For it conveys the impression of a 
 deliberate wish to conceal the truth. 
 
 Soon after his speech in April, Prince Biilow had fainted 
 in the Reichstag, and been incapacitated from attending 
 the Reichstag till November. Towards the end of that 
 month he made some important speeches. In reference 
 to the moral scandals in the higher regions of German society 
 people had begun to talk of a Camarilla that ruled the 
 Court, and that had been the cause of the dissolution of 
 the Reichstag at the end of 1906. He not only denied that 
 anything of the sort had happened, he himself having recom- 
 mended the dissolution to the Federated Governments, but 
 also strongly denied the existence of any such thing as a 
 Camarilla at all (Reden, iii. 65-70). He endeavoured to 
 allay the nervousness that had arisen during the year from 
 the signs of a rapprochement between England and Russia 
 by arguing that their agreement of August 31st bore no 
 
202 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 hostility to Germany, as was shown by the meeting of the 
 Kaiser with the Czar, and with the meetings between the 
 Kaiser and King Edward. He spoke also pacifically about 
 Morocco : he was thankful that France and Spain had 
 informed the German Government of their intended action 
 for repressing the Casablanca disorders, nor would Germany 
 in any way oppose them (ib. iii. 72). But his references 
 to Russia failed to satisfy; his professed indifference to 
 her growing friendship with England was thought to 
 cover defeat and disappointment ; he was but resigning 
 himself to a danger he had failed to avert (Reventlow, 312). 
 It seemed another step in the policy of making a ring of 
 the Powers against Germany ; British policy for the last 
 few years had been opposed to Germany in Europe and 
 in all quarters of the earth, and King Edward's clever and 
 unremitting schemes were in unison with the feelings of 
 far the greater part of the British people (ib. 303). 
 
 Count Reventlow's idea of King Edward as the prime 
 author of the whole English anti-German policy of these 
 years was almost universal in Germany. But it is curious 
 to find that in certain circles of France a similar or greater 
 mistrust of him prevailed than even in Germany. This is 
 proved by a book called La France Conquise : Edward VII 
 et Clemenceau, by M. Emile Flourens, at one time Foreign 
 Minister of France. His theory was that all that happened 
 during the King's reign was due to the personal initiative 
 of the King. According to him, it was the King who, 
 wishing to remove Russia from our commercial and naval 
 path, first caused Japan to make war on Russia (a variant 
 of the Morning Post story that it was the Kaiser who lured 
 the Russian Emperor to destruction by pushing him into 
 war with Japan, December 18, 1920), and then, to com- 
 plete the ruin of Russia, stirred up the Russian Revolution : 
 and all this through the financial aid of the Jews in London. 
 Having thus disposed of Russia, he proceeded to dispose 
 of his nephew the Kaiser by raising the Moroccan question 
 as an apple of discord between France and Germany. 
 Edward VII, thought M. Flourens, reigned in London, 
 
THE "COMING'* WAR 203 
 
 but he governed in Paris, using M. Clemenceau as his pro- 
 consul in France to execute his designs and desires over 
 France and Europe. But for all this the writer vouchsafed 
 not a word of evidence, and it would seem as likely that 
 the King fell under the attraction of M. Clemenceau and 
 M. Delcasse as that he directed these statesmen. King 
 Edward was doubtless a strong Imperialist, but that he 
 was so Machiavellian as M. Flourens supposes requires a 
 great deal of proof in the place of none at all. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 1908 
 
 THE MEETING AT REVAL AND THE TRIPLE 
 ENTENTE 
 
 The new year began badly. The previous year had seemed 
 to Germany as if an avalanche of coaUtions was joining 
 forces for her overthrow, under the direction of England 
 (Schiemann, viii. i). The murder of the King of Portugal 
 and of his son, the Crown Prince, on February ist, was a 
 grievous sequel to the enthusiasm with which the King 
 had so recently been welcomed and f^ted in London ; and 
 a sign of the disturbed state of the European world. 
 Macedonia remained unpacified, and the outrages of brigand 
 bands mocked the desire for law and order. And in Ireland 
 the practice of cattle-driving reached such dimensions that 
 Mr. Birrell, the Chief Secretary, had to adopt an adaman- 
 tine attitude against the clamour for a renewal of the 
 Crimes Act. 
 
 At home the year was one of exceptional futility. To 
 little purpose did the Liberal Government set itself to the 
 task of the reforms expected of it. Only the Old Age 
 Pensions Act succeeded in passing the pohtical and social 
 barriers placed in its way. Months of weary debate in 
 Parliament and of acrimonious discussion in the country 
 were spent over an Education Bill which had in the end to 
 be withdrawn. But not even a Bill for bringing the world 
 to an end could have encountered more opposition than a 
 Bill for restricting the abuses of the drink traffic. The 
 Licensing Bill found fiercer enemies in the brewing industry 
 than even the Education Bill found among the clergy. The 
 Peckham Election in March was a long orgy of clamour. 
 
THE TRIPLE ENTENTE 205 
 
 to which only the pencil of a Hogarth could have done 
 justice ; and the return of the Unionist candidate fore- 
 shadowed the Bill's ultimate fate, when on November 29th 
 it was scornfully vetoed in the Lords by a majority of 272 
 to 96. And whilst the question of the proper place of a 
 Second Chamber in our poHtical system was thus intensified, 
 the proceedings of the militant suffrage women to obtain 
 admission to the Constitution kept up a state of feverish 
 effervescence which added greatly to the confusion of the 
 time. Such a turmoil was too much for the wearied Prime 
 Minister, who resigned his office on April 5th and his life 
 on April 22nd ; his pacifist tendencies consorted ill with 
 the pro-French policy at all costs which was that of Sir E. 
 Grey at the Foreign Office, and the King immediately 
 summoned Mr. Asquith to Biarritz to entrust this prominent 
 leader of the Liberal Imperialist Party with the task of 
 steering the straightest course he could through the growing 
 anarchy of the time. 
 
 For if the political weather-glass pointed to " stormy ** 
 at home, it pointed still more in that direction abroad. Of 
 the two opposing currents, making respectively for war or 
 peace with Germany, the former flowed in 1908 with acceler- 
 ated speed towards its end. The year had begun ominously 
 with a great speech by M. Delcasse on January 24th, in 
 which, after a silence which had remained unbroken since 
 his resignation in 1905, he advised his countrymen to 
 strengthen their aUiances, and to maintain an Army that 
 was adequate to their needs. The meaning of this advice 
 was as clearly understood in Germany as it was in France 
 or England or Russia. It was a summons to the friendly 
 Powers to prepare for war ; and Lord Haldane's Territorial 
 Army scheme, and the scare about the Navy, increased the 
 general uneasiness. Delcasse stood strongly for the Anglo- 
 French- Russian Entente — professedly for defensive purposes, 
 of course ; but, as the best defensive is to take the offensive, 
 potential enemies draw little comfort from such professions. 
 Lord Curzon expressed a gratification that was wider than 
 his own that a poHcy of understanding and alliances had 
 
206 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 been substituted for one of splendid isolation, and attributed 
 the change, as all knew or dimly apprehended, to the influ- 
 ence and political sagacity of the Sovereign. Unfortunately 
 Germany rightly read hostiHty to herself in all these ententes, 
 and expressed her feelings in such a sentence as this : " The 
 man whose restless occupation at the present moment 
 threatens the peace of Europe is more and more plainly 
 none other than the King of England." Neutral opinion 
 took the same direction. Thus Baron Greindl writes on 
 January 27th, in reference to M. Delcasse's warlike speech : 
 *' The policy which King Edward has organized under the 
 pretext of protecting Europe against an imaginary German 
 danger has conjured up a French danger which is only too 
 real, and which threatens us (Belgium) first and foremost." 
 And again on July i8th : " The personal policy of the 
 King of England is frankly hostile to Germany." This 
 feeling or beHef remained the undercurrent of the whole 
 of the King's reign, and it was more than any civiUties 
 between monarch and monarch had the power to overcome. 
 The Press, in unison with Mr. Balfour's alarmist speeches 
 in Parliament during the month of March, did all it could 
 to keep aHve the war atmosphere, by exaggerated accounts 
 of the ultimate results of the German Navy Act of 1897, 
 and by such scaring articles as " The German Danger," 
 or " German Challenge to British Naval Supremacy," 
 although the German Government had disclaimed all attempts 
 at any such rivalry (Ann. Reg., 1908, 292). Sincerely 
 desirous for peace as were both the King and the Kaiser, 
 the Press wielded the larger power ; so true is it, as Sir E. 
 Grey said at Scarborough on November 20, 1908, that 
 "half the difficulties of foreign poUcy arose from the inge- 
 nuity of the Press in different countries in imputing motives 
 to each other's Governments." The Kaiser, moved to 
 irritation by the attitude of our Press, and hoping to counter- 
 act its effects, decided to intervene personally with a letter 
 to Lord Tweedmouth, the First Lord of the Admiralty. 
 This famous letter, written on February 14th, was received 
 on February i8th, and came to the knowledge of Colonel 
 
THE TRIPLE ENTENTE 207 
 
 Repington from sources he never revealed in the last week 
 of February. Suspecting the letter as designed to effect 
 a reduction of our Naval Estimates, after consultation with 
 Mr. Buckle, The Times editor, the Colonel wrote a letter 
 to The Times on March 6th, urging that this fearful letter 
 from the Kaiser should be laid before ParHament. But 
 there was no pubhcation of the letter itself till it appeared 
 in the Morning Post of October 30, 19 14, and subsequently 
 in Colonel Repington's Vestigia (287-91). It assuredly 
 contained nothing that in the least justified the commotion 
 stirred up by it in the country by the Editor of The Times 
 and its MiHtary Correspondent. 
 
 The Kaiser, asking leave to intrude for a few moments 
 on Lord Tweedmouth's " precious time," went on to express 
 the hope that some explanation from himself about the 
 German naval programme would help to prevent this 
 programme from being used by political parties in England 
 as a bogey to assist their ends. 'It was nonsensical and 
 untrue that the intended Navy was meant to challenge British 
 supremacy. It was built against nobody at all, but solely 
 for Germany's own needs in relation to her growing trade. 
 Many of Germany's ships had become obsolete with time, 
 and she was committed to a wholesale rebuilding of her 
 entire Navy, not to an increase of its units. '^He deprecated 
 Germany being alone kept in view in all the discussions 
 about the two-Power standard. It was " very galHng to 
 the Germans to see their country continually held up as 
 the sole menace and danger to Britain by the whole Press 
 of the different contending parties, considering that other 
 countries were building too, and there were even larger 
 fleets than the German." Permanent mischief might result 
 from these anti-German articles by giving rise to retahatory 
 wishes in the German Naval League. Lord Esher's phrase \ 
 in a letter to The Times (February 6th), in which he said IN 
 that " every German, from the Emperor down to the last 
 man, wished for the downfall of Sir John Fisher," he rebuked 
 as ** a piece of unmitigated balderdash." It had created 
 " immense merriment " in Germany, where no one dreamt 
 
208 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 of wishing to influence Great Britain in the choice of her 
 servants ; such a notion was preposterous, and he repudiated 
 such a calumny. This perpetual quoting of the German 
 danger was " utterly unworthy of the great British nation, 
 with its world-wide Empire and its mighty Navy." He 
 wrote as an " ardent admirer " of this Navy, as one who 
 wished it all success, and who was proud to wear the uniform 
 of a British Admiral, as conferred on him by the late Queen. 
 In conclusion, the German Naval Bill was not aimed at 
 England, nor was it a challenge to British supremacy, which 
 would remain unchallenged for generations to come. 
 
 The increase of the German Navy, which was interpreted 
 in England as obviously meant for our invasion, was also 
 open to the interpretation that it was the result of a similar 
 fear in Germany of our intentions. Thus Baron Greindl 
 wrote on February 2nd from Berlin : " No one here has 
 ever entertained the absurd and impracticable idea of an 
 aggression against England ; but every one fears an English 
 aggression. This is the reason why the Reichstag has 
 agreed without murmuring to an enormous increase of 
 expenditure for the Imperial Navy.** And on March 28th, 
 in reference to the financial strain of the Navy Bill : ** The 
 sacrifice was only accepted because the Government con- 
 siders itself obUged to take every precaution with a view 
 to guarding the country against a possible aggression on 
 the part of England " (Belgian Diplomatic Documents, 43 
 and 44). In the panic produced by our scare- writers about 
 the German danger this was an aspect of the case that 
 never received any consideration, justified though it was 
 by so much that was written or spoken on our side. 
 
 The Chancellor followed the Kaiser in a very similar 
 speech, delivered in the Reichstag on March 24th. The 
 Tweedmouth letter, he said, was one that might have been 
 written by any real friend of better relations between the 
 two countries : a merely private letter, such as was within 
 the right of any Sovereign to send. It was a coarse and 
 unjustifiable imputation (as had been made by The Times) 
 to represent it as an attempt to influence in the interest of 
 
THE TRIPLE ENTENTE 209 
 
 Germany the Minister responsible for the British Naval 
 Estimates, or to encroach clandestinely on the internal 
 affairs of Great Britain. The Kaiser was the last man to 
 think that any patriotic British Minister would accept 
 foreign advice on the Naval Budget. And Germany claimed 
 the same right of non-interference. In face of the ceaseless 
 attacks which ascribed to Germany aggressive designs 
 against England the defensive character of German naval 
 policy could not be too often nor too strongly insisted on : 
 Germany wished to live at peace and quiet with England, 
 and therefore felt bitterly the habit of a section of English 
 writers to keep on harping on the " German Danger," 
 although the British Fleet was many times stronger than 
 the German, and other countries too had stronger fleets, 
 and were building them with no less ardour than Germany. 
 It was Germany, ever again Germany, and only Germany, 
 against which public opinion across the Channel was whetted 
 by a reckless polemic, and in the interest of the general 
 tranquillity of the world such a polemic should cease. As 
 Germany never deprecated British shipbuilding as a menace 
 to herself, so it was unfair that German shipbuilding should 
 be treated as a challenge to England. The Kaiser deemed 
 it an honour to be an Admiral of the British Navy, and was 
 a great admirer of the political culture of the British people 
 and of its Navy, and in this the Kaiser was in unison with 
 his Chancellor and with the whole German nation. But 
 he was sure that the excellent treatment of the incident by 
 the British Parliament (March 6th and 7th) would prevent 
 any disturbance of the friendly relations between England 
 and Germany (Reden, iii. 11 8-1 9). 
 
 Happily this had been the case. The great sensation 
 caused in England by the letter soon subsided. Lord 
 Tweedmouth described the letter fairly as *' very friendly 
 in tone and quite informal." The German Foreign Office 
 semi-officially disclaimed any wish on the writer's part to 
 interfere with British naval policy ; and Lord Rosebery, 
 on March 9th, threw all the cold water he could on the 
 Jingo plot. Absolutely insane inferences he justly said, 
 
 14. 
 
210 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 had been drawn from the letter ; no German outside an 
 asylum would have dreamt that such a letter could have 
 any influence on British armaments. He strongly depre- 
 cated the custom by certain organs of the Press of seizing 
 on every trivial incident to foster bad blood between England 
 and Germany, and he counselled the avoidance of such an 
 exasperation of Germany as could alone bring to pass a 
 war between them. But he might as well have spoken to 
 the sea. Nor did the matter end here. For Sir Charles 
 Hardinge told Colonel Repington and some others at 
 Alloa on August S, 1917, a curious story, which shows 
 that the Asquith Cabinet nursed its resentment, and, many 
 months after the matter had blown over, made use of it 
 as a pretext for threatening Germany with war. It *' com- 
 missioned " the King, when starting for Germany in August, 
 " to speak to the Kaiser in the sense of a paper drawn up 
 by the Cabinet, telling the Kaiser that, if he interfered any 
 more with our naval matters, war might result." The 
 King duly arrived at Cronberg early on August nth, accom- 
 panied by Sir Charles Hardinge, Sir Stanley Clarke, and 
 Colonel Ponsonby, but, although he was with his nephew 
 all one morning at the Castle of Friedrichshof, he talked of 
 everything except the offending letter. This he could not 
 bring himself to talk of ; for, indeed, to do so involved an 
 act of discourtesy from a guest to his host ; and finally he 
 directed Hardinge to undertake the task. This Hardinge 
 did, speaking to the Kaiser " very plainly in the sense of 
 the Cabinet minute," whilst the King looked on from a 
 distance, watching the scene closely. And as Sir Charles 
 did not mince matters, the Kaiser not unnaturally waxed 
 " extremely angry, and his suite saw his anger, and would 
 not speak to Hardinge. But eventually his anger passed, 
 and he gave Hardinge the Grand Cross of the Red Eagle, 
 which Hardinge did not want, but thought it prudent to 
 advise the King that he should accept." 
 
 Such was the story as repeated by Colonel Repington 
 in his First World War (ii. 23-4). But when Lord Hardinge 
 reverted to the incident at Biarritz on March 12, 1922, he 
 
THE TRIPLE ENTENTE 211 
 
 made no allusion to the part played by the King at the 
 interview, nor to the real and just cause of the Kaiser's 
 wrath ; he referred only to his own remarks on the uneasiness 
 caused in England by the doubling of the Kiel Canal, and 
 on the danger of naval competition if the German Navy 
 continued to be increased ; although so little was such a 
 danger really believed in that only so lately as May 5th 
 of the same year Lord Fisher had written to Lord Esher 
 that our Navy was then in such a condition of superiority 
 as to be able to " take on all the navies of the world put 
 together." There is no reason to doubt that Lord Hardinge 
 did remonstrate with the Kaiser on the increase of the 
 German Navy ; for in the coming years he always expressed 
 the belief that no hope could be expected of better relations 
 between ourselves and Germany save by Germany's sub- 
 mitting to refrain from any further increase of her Navy. 
 But it was the expostulation about the Tweedmouth letter, 
 coupled with a menace of war, that was the primary object 
 of the interview, and that really roused the Kaiser's indig- 
 nation. And it throws a revealing light on the policy of 
 the Liberal Imperialist Government of Mr. Asquith and 
 Sir E. Grey that they should have thus been willing to 
 reopen so dangerous a subject long since amicably settled, 
 and that the King should have lent himself to serve as 
 their instrument in conveying to the Kaiser a barely veiled 
 challenge to an immediate appeal to arms. Fortunately 
 the Kaiser declined the provocation, and a few days later 
 could describe the incident to the Czar by saying that 
 " Uncle Bertie was all sunshine at Cronberg, and in very 
 good humour." 
 
 ^iL^ir John Fisher had been First Sea Lord since 1904, 
 and was the constant target of much adverse criticism. 
 But his plans, as apart from his poHcy, had the strong 
 support of the King. His poHcy was exposed in 1903, when 
 he advocated to Lord Esher the nipping of the German 
 Navy in the bud. And in this very month of March 1908, 
 when the Kaiser's letter caused so much excitement, he 
 had " a long secret conversation with King Edward," in 
 
212 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 the course of which he urged on His Majesty the policy of 
 " Copenhagening the German Fleet d la Nelson," and 
 lamented that we had no Pitt or Bismarck to order so 
 monstrous a proceeding. Sir John was fond of harping 
 on what he conceived that Pitt would have done, and this 
 same year he sent the King certain quotations from Pitt 
 with regard to dealing with a possible enemy before his 
 strength had reached maturity. As Germany had always 
 expressed her intention to " make even England's mighty 
 Navy hesitate " at sea, it seemed simply a sagacious act on 
 our p^rt to seize the German Fleet/ when it was so easy to 
 do so, in the manner he had sketched out to the King"/ He 
 did not consider it " a very gentlemanly sort of thing '* on 
 Nelson's part to " go and destroy the Danish Fleet at Copen- 
 hagen," but the strongest reason was always the best, and 
 " Sir John was much disappointed that his plan was " damned 'A 
 by the disapproval of the King^and of other ai^horities. 
 It was therefore in vain that on March 14, 1908^ he wrote 
 to the King that, since our having eventually to fight 
 Germany was as certain as anything could be, because 
 otherwise it was impossible for Germany to expand commer- 
 . cially, our attack on her must be ** quick and overwhelming," 
 ' or Germany would close the Baltic against us as effectually 
 as Turkey closed the Black Sea against us by her possession 
 of the DardanellesX It behoved us, therefore, to have both 
 Russia and Turkey upon our side, and to suffer Russia to 
 fortify the Aland Islands (Memories, m.% One can under- 
 stand that, as these views of Sir John Fisher were well 
 known to the Kaiser and his Ministers, as has been previously 
 shown. Sir John did not enjoy the same popularity in 
 Germany that he did in England. It was this knowledge 
 that was one of the main conditions of the war-feeUng that 
 raged all through the King's reign. The alternative plan 
 to that of making war in time of peace, and without a quarrel 
 to justify it, was to concentrate our whole naval strength 
 in the North Sea, and this was done so unostentatiously 
 that but for an article in the Scientific Annual by Captain 
 Mahan it might have escaped the notice of the world that 
 
THE TRIPLE ENTENTE 218 
 
 88 per cent, of British naval guns were pointed against 
 Germany. 
 
 At that time Germany had three submarines against 
 " a mass of effective ones " on our side ; we had seven 
 Dreadnoughts, Germany as yet none. So that Sir John 
 Fisher could reasonably write to Lord Esher on May 5, 
 1908 : " The Navy can take on all the navies of the world 
 put together " [ih. 186). As for the scare of invasion, he 
 knew the nonsense of it, and wrote : ** I am emphatically 
 of opinion that no raid of any kind (that is, landing of 
 troops) is feasible with all our late developments, which 
 are developing every day. ... So don't let us get a scare 
 over 24,000 men coming unobserved " {ib. 188). But the 
 scare continued to be cultivated. 
 
 Another unfortunate incident of this summer was the 
 removal of Sir F. Lascelles from the British Embassy at 
 Berlin. For fifteen years he had striven to improve 
 English and German relations, and he enjoyed the confidence 
 both of the Kaiser and of his Government. But he left 
 Berlin in the summer, to return in the autumn to present 
 his letters of recall. His departure was " only apparently 
 a voluntary one," wrote Baron Gieindl on July 18, 1908, 
 despite German efforts for his remaining, as well as of 
 his own strong wish to remain. The only reason the Baron 
 could imagine for his removal was that " the zeal displayed 
 by him in view of removing misunderstandings which he 
 considered absurd and highly disadvantageous for both 
 countries was not in keeping with the political ideas of his 
 Sovereign " {Belgian Diplomatic Documents, 50). Blunt 
 was told the same thing : " Lascelles is out of favour now 
 with the King, as being too German in his sentiments.'* 
 It was also said that he was held " responsible for the 
 Kaiser's Wilhelm's unfriendly attitude " ; and the two 
 statements seem hard to reconcile {Diaries, ii. 213). 
 
 /Anxieties about possible German ambitions in the Baltic 
 and the. North Sea probably explain the visit paid by King 
 Edward,Nafter his return from his annual visit to the 
 Continent, accompanied by the Queen and Princess Victoria, 
 
214 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 and by a large suite, to the three northern Courts of Den- 
 mark, Sweden, and Norway between April 21st and May 2nd. 
 The visit to Copenhagen, from April 21st to 26th, coincided 
 on April 23rd with the signature at St. Petersburg of the 
 Baltic Convention between Russia, Germany, Sweden and 
 Denmark to maintain the territorial status quo as regarded 
 the Baltic, and with another Convention signed at Berlin 
 between Great Britain, France, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, 
 and Holland, sanctioning similar principles about the 
 North Sea. All these State visits were as like to one 
 another as one penguin is to another. There was the 
 usual tale of gay bunting, of gala dinners, of operas, and of 
 friendly toasts between the different monarchs. Tne King, 
 with his usual felicity of phrase, expressed his grateful 
 thanks to Frederick VII of Denmark, to Gustavus V of 
 Sweden, to King Haakon of Norway ; to the latter ex- 
 pressing the hope that the sport of salmon-fishing, which 
 Englishmen shared with Norwegians, might ever remain 
 as an emblem of peace between the two countries, and that 
 the peace of Norway might be permanently preserved. 
 The visit to Gustavus V at Stockholm, from April 26th to 
 28th, was the first visit ever paid by a British to a Swedish 
 Sovereign ; and both this visit and that to King Haakon 
 at Christiania, from April 29th to May 2nd, were hailed as 
 conducing to European peace. But all these ententes for the 
 maintenance of existing territorial arrangements were only in- 
 dications of the general feeling of insecurity which prevailed, 
 and of the apprehension of some impending disturbance. 
 
 To avert such disturbance some laudable efforts were 
 made. Pacifists in England and Germany, perceiving the 
 obvious drift of the growing friction between their countries, 
 did their best to counteract it by schemes for the promotion 
 of mutual friendship. From May 17th to 23rd a number 
 of German burgomasters and municipal councillors were 
 entertained by the Lord Mayor, welcomed by representative 
 members of the Government, and received by the King at 
 Buckingham Palace. They were followed the next week 
 by a deputation of German ecclesiastics, Protestant and 
 
THE TRIPLE ENTENTE 215 
 
 Catholic, who in their turn were entertained by the Lord 
 Mayor, and privileged to listen to speeches of the usual 
 type from the Archbishop of Westminster and his Grace 
 of Canterbury. They were received at the House of 
 Commons by Mr. Runciman, and Mr. Lloyd George subse- 
 quently promised a grant of public money for the promotion 
 of peace and goodwill in Europe by similar international 
 hospitalities (Ann, Reg., 1908, 121). But what could money 
 do for peace against tne methods used for the cultivation 
 of its opposite ? It was so easy to feed public alarm with 
 unverifiable rumours. Who, for instance, could fail to 
 quake when it was intimated in The Times (July 13), 
 that the Secretary for War was to be asked whether he 
 could say anything of a Staff ride through England '* organ- 
 ized by a Foreign Power," or whether the Chief Constables 
 of the Eastern Counties had any knowledge of foreign spies 
 at work in England ? In July The Times and the Standard 
 fanned into a flame this scare of German spies ; as if any 
 country in Europe was free from the subterranean work 
 of these well-paid agents of every great military State 
 (Schiemann viii. 278). Another scare was started by the 
 London correspondent of the Novya Vremya, headed *' A 
 German landing in Scotland " ; according to which a sus- 
 picious stranger, landing in Scotland, confessed, under the 
 influence of drink, that he belonged to the Prussian General 
 Staff, and that his inquiries about roads and footpaths 
 were connected with a plan for the landing of a German 
 army in Scotland as a preliminary to a march upon London. 
 A fortnight earlier Mr. Garvin's paper, the Observer, had 
 reported the activity of German oflicers on the South-East 
 Coasts of England (ib. viii. 126-7). Rumours of this sort 
 were greedily swallowed, and, if the fears caused by them 
 were not widespread, they provided exciting ** copy " for 
 a section of the Press (Ann. Reg., 1908, 162). In any case 
 the continual dripping of such hints of terror into the 
 public ear had the intended effect of representing Germany 
 as an enemy State with which sooner or later we were bound 
 to be at war. It was by such a process of national self- 
 
216 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 suggestion that war ultimately developed from imagination 
 into actuality. 
 
 President Fallieres, accompanied by M. Pichon, the 
 Foreign Minister, paid a State visit to London from May 
 25th to 29th. There was much talk at this time of changing 
 the entente with France into a definite alliance, and M. 
 Tardieu, who reflected M. Clemenceau's ideas in the Temps, 
 caused some sensation by an article in that paper to the 
 effect that France could not undertake the risk of an alliance 
 unless we adopted universal military service, or organized 
 a professional army fit for prompt service on the Continent. 
 The trouble in Morocco continued. M. Clemenceau dis- 
 claimed all intention on the part of France of suppressing 
 anarchy over the whole of Morocco, or of entering upon 
 further conquests or expeditions ; and M. Pichon gave 
 explanations of French action in that country which seemed 
 in Germany to be contradicted by facts. When Mulai 
 Hafid, one of the contending brothers, decided to send two 
 deputies to Berlin to represent his case, the Temps issued a 
 warning to Germany against their reception : a piece of 
 assumption, wrote Schiemann, that passed all bounds ; 
 how or whether these messengers were received was no 
 concern of France (viii. 167). They arrived on May 9th ; 
 but the incident showed how Morocco was still poisoning the 
 relations of France and Germany. The German Govern- 
 ment, it was said, was careful to pretend to believe the 
 most improbable assertions of M. Pichon and of the French 
 Ambassador in Berlin, M. Jules Cambon, *' so as not to be 
 obliged to reopen the Moroccan question " (Baron Greindl, 
 May loth). The French, English, and Russian Press kept 
 up a vigorous campaign against Germany, especially the 
 French Temps. Feeling remained excited, and it was 
 doubtless against the danger of the coalition thus prepared 
 that the German Kaiser, and other German Princes, visited 
 the Austrian Emperor at Schonbiunn on May 7th, returning 
 to Berlin on May 20th. For war might any day test the 
 loyalty to Germany of her Austrian ally, and the friendship 
 needed to be reinvigorated. 
 
THE TRIPLE ENTENTE 217 
 
 Following President Falli^res' visit to London, and 
 doubtless connected with it in the interests of the Triple 
 Entente, came the visit of the King and Queen at Whitsun- 
 tide to Reval to meet the Czar : a visit, says Lord Redesdale, 
 *' purely dictated by family affection," without '' the most 
 distant suspicion of politics attached to it," but to which 
 the German Press took exception, " as evidence of a dark 
 and sinister anti-Teuton plot " (ii. 766). This, however, 
 runs counter to other evidence ; for how could politics 
 not be attached to a visit which, as Sir E. Grey said, was 
 desired to have the political effect of improving our relations 
 with Russia ? The most frightful things were being done 
 in Russia at the time : lynchings, tortures, and burnings 
 alive (Schiemann, viii. 182-3) » ^.nd so prevalent was the 
 terror that it was not deemed safe to invite the King to 
 St. Petersburg (ib. viii. 254). Never before had an English 
 Sovereign visited a Russian Czar, nor was the innovation 
 suffered without much Liberal and Labour opposition in 
 Parliament. No Cabinet Minister was to attend the King ; 
 only Sir Charles Hardinge, permanent Under-Secretary to 
 the Foreign Office, as one of the King's suite. Sir E. Grey 
 assured the House of Commons that no negotiations were 
 on foot for any treaty or convention with Russia, nor would 
 any be initiated during the visit (Ann. Reg., 1908, 121), 
 but he admitted that the visit would have a political effect, 
 and was desired to have one, namely, the improvement 
 of our relations with Russia ; it was " a policy of peace." 
 But desirable as was such an end, incieased enmity with 
 Germany might be a dear price to pay for it. ^ Sir John 
 Fisher was to Germany as a red rag to a bull, and his 
 accompaniment of the King did not contribute to her 
 appeasement. 
 J^ The two monarchs met on June 9th. Nicholas II 
 graciously presented Sir John Fisher, Sir John French, 
 and Count Benckendorff with the Alexander Nevsky Order, 
 and the King made the Czar an Admiral of the British 
 Navy. But all this was the mere surface of things. The 
 real meaning of them lurked below. For better or worse, 
 
218 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 the visit sealed the Triple Entente ; " the realization/* 
 says Mr. Legge, *' of a scheme long planned by '* the King, 
 and worked out by him, when Prince of Wales, with the 
 Marquis de Breteuil (King Edward in His True Colours, 
 171— 3). Isvolsky, the Russian Foreign Minister, was natu- 
 rally of the party, nor needed the introduction to the 
 King, as related in the newspapers ; for Isvolsky himself 
 speaks of the long interviews he had had with the King 
 when at the Russian Embassy at Copenhagen, where they 
 settled between them the bases of the Anglo-Russian entente, 
 begun in 1907 and now extended (Memoirs, 20). In the 
 long talk that the King had with the Russian Prime 
 Minister, Stolypin, the latter was described in the Daily 
 Telegraph of June 11, 1908, as *' literally fascinated " 
 by the King ; " not only what he said, but the manner in 
 which he expressed it, bore the pecuHar impression of an 
 artist in international politics, whom Europe is now come 
 to regard as the first statesman in Europe.'* 
 
 But perhaps the many conversations that Stolypin had 
 with Sir John Fisher were of more significance. Stolypin 
 expressed the wish that England would prevent the Baltic 
 from becoming a German lake, adding that he himself 
 was devoting his life to making the Russian frontier secure 
 against a German attack (Memories, 237). Henceforth 
 the Triple Entente was ranged against the Triple Alliance 
 in scarcely veiled antagonism. Prince Orloff thought that 
 the King's visit had changed the atmosphere of Russian 
 feeling towards us from those of suspicion to those of cordial 
 trust (ih. 231). 
 
 According to M. Victor Berard, in the Revue de Paris, 
 the authors of the Triple Entente were Marie Federovna, 
 the Dowager Empress of Russia, M. Paul Cambon, M. 
 Delcasse, Camille Barr^re, and King Edward (Legge, More 
 About King Edward, 25). A conversation at the time 
 between Sir Charles Hardinge and Isvolsky shows the force 
 of our drift towards Russia. Sir Charles repeated several 
 times the opinion that, if Germany's naval preparations 
 continued, Europe would have a most anxious time in seven 
 
THE TRIPLE ENTENTE 219 
 
 or eight years, when Russia would in^ vifahly hp thfi ^rhitpr 
 oljth e situation y' therefore England's desire was that Russia 
 should become as strong as possible both on land and sea 
 (Siebert, 778). S When The Times correspondent suggested 
 that at Reval the diplomatists talked about Turkey and 
 Macedonia, and then went on to say that " perhaps the 
 chiet subject was the present status quo and the future 
 development of the relations between the members of the 
 Triple Entente and Germany," there was little need of 
 the word " perhaps." 
 
 A letter by Isvolsky, dated December 3, 1908, bears 
 witness to the disquieting effect which was produced in 
 Germany by the suspicion that this Anglo-Russian entente 
 covered a Triple Alliance, concluded or to be concluded, 
 against herself {ib. 780). Count Reventlow thought that 
 the agreement between England and Russia was to the 
 effect that they should unite with France and the Balkan 
 States for a war of destruction against Germany and 
 Austria, as soon as Russia had reorganized her Army ; 
 which the Russian military experts put at six or eight years, 
 i.e. in 1914 or 1916 (352). So relations became worse instead 
 of better. " Hatred of the German Empire," wrote the 
 Neue Freie Presse of Vienna, " blazed forth as though a 
 fuse had been lighted " ; whilst a German paper declared 
 that " a mighty coalition with pronounced anti-German 
 tendencies will henceforth confront us in all questions of 
 world-wide policy." 
 
 But some steps were taken to counteract this dangerous 
 consequence of the new entente. Sir E. Grey, on July 27th, 
 used words of balm when, in answer to Sir C. Dilke, he 
 disclaimed any political scheme on our part for the isolation 
 of Germany. And on July 28th the King made use of some 
 admirable words in answer to an Address from the Seven- 
 teenth Universal Peace Congress : " Rulers and statesmen," 
 he said, " can set before themselves no higher aim than 
 the promotion of mutual good understanding and cordial 
 friendship among the nations of the world," and that to do 
 so would always be his own object. Strange, then, to find 
 
220 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 both the King and the Cabinet within a few weeks threaten- 
 ing the Kaiser with war if he again gave such a cause of 
 offence as he had given in the Tweedmouth letter ! 
 
 Nevertheless Germany felt herself left out in the cold, 
 and refused to be comforted. President Falli^res followed 
 the King in paying visits to the three Scandinavian Courts, 
 and to Nicholas II at Reval on July 27th, and it was perhaps 
 in the hope of minimizing the bad effect of these English 
 and French visits that the King, on his way to Marienbad, 
 spent that nth of August with his nephew at Cronberg. 
 The newspapers told how the German school-children 
 cheered the two monarchs as they drove in the same motor- 
 car from the station. And there were the usual Press 
 comments, which said so much and yet so little. The 
 Kaiser, writing to the Czar on August i8th, told him of 
 his uncle's good humour, and how he talked about Turkey, 
 thinking she was best left alone to organize herself, and 
 thus relieving the Powers of the projected reforms : " which 
 seemed to relieve him visibly." The Kaiser seemed to 
 bear his Russian cousin no ill-will for the welcome he had 
 given his enemies at Reval. And the Czar was always 
 all things to all men. 
 
 That same evening the King proceeded to Ischl on a 
 visit to the Austrian Emperor, with whom he had long 
 been on the best of terms, and who is said to have kept 
 him for years well informed on the political situation in 
 Vienna (Legge's King Edward in His True Colours, 197). 
 It was believed that since 1903 the King had tried to detach 
 Austria from her German alliance, and to get Francis Joseph 
 to persuade the German Kaiser to restrict his shipbuilding 
 programme {Reventlow, 353). At Ischl Sir Charles Hardinge 
 had an interview with the Austrian Foreign Minister, Count 
 Arenthal ; but though their conversations had possibly 
 the good intention of a pacifying effect, it was to appear 
 within less than two months how ineffective they were for 
 that purpose. 
 
 At Marienbad the King met Sir John Fisher (Memories, 
 231), and on August 26th he was visited by his old friend 
 
THE TRIPLE ENTENTE 221 
 
 M. Clemenceau, the French Premier, and on another day 
 by Isvolsky, the Russian Foreign Minister. The same 
 motives of health and pleasure may have drawn to the 
 same place these rulers of the fate of Europe, but it looked 
 as if their meeting at Marienbad was a sequel to their 
 meeting at Reval. As of course no minutes were taken 
 of their conversations, the outside world, including Ger- 
 many, was left to its own conclusions. 
 
 Mr. Churchill, then President of the Board of Trade, 
 tried in a speech at Swansea on August 15th to allay the 
 growing anti-German agitation. He repudiated the idea of 
 an inevitable German war ; deplored the provocative 
 language of Lord Cromer, and of Mr. Blatchford in the 
 Clarion ; declared that England and Germany had no 
 cause of quarrel, and that the German war party did not 
 exceed a negligible 10,000 adherents. The Kaiser's speech 
 at Strasburg on August 30th seemed to be a sort of accept- 
 ance of the olive-branch thus thrown out from our side; 
 being pitched in a correspondingly pacific tone. He 
 declared his deep conviction that the peace of Europe was 
 in no danger ; for the princes and statesmen of Europe 
 ** knew and felt that they were responsible to God for the 
 lives and prosperity of the people entrusted to their 
 leadership " : a sentiment identical with that attributed 
 by Sir Sidney Lee to King Edward VII, who in his later 
 years is said to have grown *' keenly alive to the sinfulness 
 of provoking war lightly, and to the obUgation that lay on 
 rulers of only appealing to its arbitrament in the last 
 resort." If they differed in other respects, uncle and nephew 
 agreed in this sense of their duty : a great advance on 
 the moral feeling of their ancestors. The Kaiser went on 
 to say that Germany was resolved to keep her armed forces 
 at a high level, though without any menace to other Powers, 
 and to develop them as circumstances required without 
 favour or injury to anyone {Ann. Reg., 1908, 296). 
 
 Nevertheless the war tension prevailed over all assur- 
 ances of the Kaiser and the Chancellor of their pacific 
 aims. It was easier to evoke the war spirit than to exorcise 
 
222 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 it. The Navy League school in Germany kept the belief 
 alive that France and England were seeking to isolate 
 Germany, if not contemplating an actual attack upon her. 
 This was as reasonable as the idea that Germany was 
 meaning to invade us. And several incidents increased 
 the irritation against Germany. There was the too hurried 
 recognition by her of Mulai Hafid as Sultan of Morocco, 
 though France and Spain, with their mandate under the 
 Act of Algegiras, had notified her that such recognition 
 must depend on Mulai's acceptance of the conditions imposed 
 upon his brother. Germany's intervention was ignored, 
 nor was Mulai recognized till after his acceptance of the 
 Franco- Spanish conditions. 
 
 Then came in September the Casablanca incident, when 
 the French captured some deserters from the Foreign 
 Legion whom the German Consulate had assisted to escape. 
 For some time things looked threatening. Germany, whilst 
 offering to censure her Consul, demanded an apology ; 
 and on France's refusing and suggesting arbitration, she 
 demanded that apology should precede arbitration, and so 
 insisted for a month, when her proposal that both sides 
 should first express regret for the incident closed it without 
 that appeal to the sword which at one time seemed imminent. 
 Count Re vent low declares that Great Britain had resolved 
 to go to war in the event of Germany's not giving way 
 at all (394). 
 
 The autumn continued full of surprises and alarms. 
 To the surprise of Europe occurred on July 22nd the revolu- 
 tion of the Young Turks, followed next day by the proclama- 
 tion of a Constitution, which the Sultan accepted, and 
 which culminated on December ist in the opening of a 
 Turkish Parliament. This swift and mild revolution gave 
 general satisfaction, and caused Greeks and Servians, 
 Bulgarians, Turks, and Rumanians to lay aside their incessant 
 warfare and to fraternize in a most pleasing manner. 
 
 But one important consequence or sequel of this great 
 event was the annexation on October 4th by Austria of 
 the long-occupied provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina ; 
 
THE TRIPLE ENTENTE 228 
 
 and the next day Bulgaria declared her independence of 
 Turkey. As both of these events ignored the Treaty of 
 Berlin, they naturally portended trouble. The annexed 
 provinces being mostly inhabited by Servians, Servia 
 clamoured for war, and in Russia pubHc indignation rose 
 to fever heat. Yet only a few weeks eariier Isvolsky had 
 declared, after interviews with Count Arenthal at Buchlau on 
 September 15th and with Signor Tittoni at Dosio on Septem- 
 ber 29th, that there was complete identity of views between 
 Russia, Austria, and Italy in all that concerned the Eastern 
 Question, the change in Turkey, and the " other more 
 important questions of the day." In any case a situation 
 arose like that of 1914 : Servia almost at war with Austria, 
 and supported by Russia. The Press got excited. It was 
 said that during and after the Bosnian crisis the British 
 Press and ParHament abounded more than before in 
 expressions of hatred for the German Empire and people, 
 and especially for the German Emperor {Reventlow, 376) ; 
 also that Count Arenthal, though silent as to the date of 
 the execution of his scheme, had imparted his intention of 
 annexation to the German and Italian Ambassadors, nor 
 met with any opposition from them (ih. 358) ; in which 
 case Germany must have been prepared for it. But not 
 a word of the plan had been told to King Edward during 
 his August visit to Austria. 
 
 The King therefore had a legitimate grievance, and Lord 
 Redesdale tells with what annoyance he received the news. 
 " It was on the 8th of October that the King received the 
 news at Balmoral, and no one who was there can forget 
 how terribly he was upset. Never did I see him so moved " 
 (Memories, i. 178). Lord Morley, who was also at Balmoral 
 at the time, makes no mention of this effect on the King. 
 But he refers to these Balkan troubles as involving *' such 
 a quantity of intrigue, secrecy, and downright lying, that 
 we don't know whether we stand on firm ground or on 
 treacherous bog," and quotes the episode as showing '* the 
 intense interest of the King in foreign policy," and his 
 " intimate first-hand knowledge both of the players and 
 
224 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 the cards in the Balkan game " (Recollections, ii. 277). But 
 how little that knowledge was worth is proved by the 
 event. Less than two months before the King and Sir 
 Charles Hardinge had been engaged with such players as 
 the Austrian Emperor and Count Arenthal, and they had 
 discussed the Eastern Question, " especially the Balkan 
 difficulties/' " with the utmost apparent intimacy." No 
 wonder, therefore, that the King felt " treacherously 
 deceived." But it required no genius to see that any 
 tampering with the Treaty of Berlin on the part of one 
 Power without the consent of all the signatories endangered 
 the world's peace : so that Lord Redesdale's remark, that 
 the King's forecast of the danger *' showed him to be possessed 
 of that prevision which marks the statesman " (i. 179), 
 seems needlessly eulogistic. Thousands besides the King 
 had the same prevision without claiming to be statesmen 
 at all. 
 
 Into this seething cauldron of intrigue and counter- 
 intrigue to which the policy of ententes and alliances had 
 reduced the Concert of Europe a fresh explosive was thrown 
 on October 27th by the publication in the Daily Telegraph, 
 through the error of an official, of the celebrated interview 
 with the Kaiser, who conceived that the open expression 
 of his feehngs might conduce to a better understanding 
 between his country and our own. The result proved 
 disappointing in both countries. The statement, or the 
 fact, that in the Boer War the Kaiser had refused to join 
 with France and Russia in a demand on England to terminate 
 the war, or that he had sent to Windsor a plan of campaign 
 for its speedier ending, was not calculated to reconcile 
 EngHsh feehng towards him, which simply reflected the 
 well-known feehng of the Court. And the vexation caused 
 in Germany by the publication was so great that Prince 
 Billow tendered his resignation, though persuaded by the 
 Kaiser to withdraw it. But had it not been that the confes- 
 sion stimulated the ever-growing cry in England for a 
 larger Navy and for universal miUtary service, it may be 
 doubted whether the indignation would have been so loudly 
 
THE TRIPLE ENTENTE 225 
 
 pronounced. The Kaiser is reported to have expressed 
 himself as follows : ** You English are mad, mad, mad as 
 March hares. What has come over you that you are so 
 completely given over to suspicions quite unworthy of a 
 great nation ? What more can I do than I have done ? 
 I declared with all the emphasis at my command in my 
 speech at the Guildhall that my heart is set upon peace, 
 and that it is one of my dearest wishes to live on the best 
 terms with England. Have I ever been false to my word ? 
 Falsehood and prevarication are alien to my nature. My 
 actions ought to speak for themselves, but you listen not 
 to them, only to those who misinterpret and distort them. 
 That is a personal insult which I feel and resent. To be for 
 ever misjudged, to have my repeated offers of friendship 
 weighed and scrutinized with jealous mistrustful eyes, taxes 
 my patience severely. I have said time after time that 
 I am a friend of England, and your Press, or at least a 
 considerable section of it, bids the people of England refuse 
 my proffered hand, and insinuates that the other holds a 
 dagger. How can I convince a nation against its will ? 
 I repeat that I am the friend of England, but you make 
 things difficult for me. My task is not of the easiest. The 
 prevailing sentiment among large sections of the middle 
 and lower classes of my own people is not friendly to 
 England. I am therefore, so to speak, in a minority in my 
 own land, but it is a minority of the best elements, just 
 as it is in England with respect to Germany. That 
 is another reason why I resent your refusal to accept 
 my pledged word that I am the friend of England. I 
 strive without ceasing to improve relations, and you 
 retort that I am your arch-enemy. You make it very 
 hard for me." 
 
 The events of later years supply no reason for doubting 
 that the Kaiser spoke with all sincerity and with strict 
 adherence to facts. But the incident caused great indigna- 
 tion in Germany, where many questions were asked in the 
 Reichstag, deaUng with the right of the Emperor to inter- 
 fere with foreign affairs, the reform of the Foreign Of&ce, 
 
 15 
 
226 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 the law of ministerial responsibility, and the right of the 
 Reichstag to a voice in the appointment of Ministers. On 
 November lo, 1908, the Chancellor, not permitted to resign, 
 had again to defend the Kaiser's words, but this he did 
 with reservations. He denied that a majority of the 
 German people were unfriendly to England ; there had been 
 regrettable misunderstandings, but he was sure that the 
 whole House would agree with him that the German people 
 wished for peaceable and friendly relations with England 
 on the basis of mutual esteem : a remark loudly applauded 
 from all sides. The Kaiser had also been wrong in indicating 
 possible trouble with Japan in the Pacific as one reason for 
 Germany's shipbuilding. Germany had no thought in the 
 Far East but of acquiring and keeping a share in the trade 
 of Asia ; she contemplated no maritime adventures ; 
 meditated no more aggression in the Pacific than in Europe, 
 and was inspired by no hostility to Japan. As for the 
 Kaiser, for two decades he had striven, often in very difficult 
 circumstances, to bring about friendly relations between 
 England and Germany, and in the face of obstacles which 
 would have discouraged many. The passionate partisanship 
 of Germany for the Boers was humanly intelligible, as arising 
 from sympathy with the weaker side, but it had led to 
 unjust and exaggerated attacks upon England. And so, 
 too, had unjust things been said about Germany in 
 England. Germany's intentions had been misrepresented, 
 and hostile designs against England imputed to her of which 
 she had never thought. The Kaiser, rightly convinced that 
 this state of things was a misfortune for both countries 
 and a danger for the civilized world, had stuck to his aim. 
 Having worked zealously and honestly for a good relation- 
 ship with England, he was mortified at being the constant 
 object of attacks suspecting his designs, even to the extent 
 of imputing to him secret designs against England's vital 
 interests. So it was that in private talks with EngHsh 
 friends he had referred to his conduct towards England in 
 difficult times as proof that he was misjudged in England. 
 But for the future he would be more reserved in his talk ; 
 
THE TRIPLE ENTENTE 22T 
 
 otherwise neither the Chancellor nor his successor could 
 bear the responsibility of the office (Reden, iii. 134-9). 
 
 The most difficult resolution of his whole political Hfe, 
 said the Chancellor, was his compliance with the Kaiser's 
 wish that he should remain in office, for the country's sake 
 as well as the Kaiser's. It behoved the German people to 
 go on quietly guarding their own interests without showing 
 pusillanimity to foreign countries ; the misfortune was not 
 greater than prudence could overcome. No one would 
 forget the lesson of the last few days, but there was no 
 reason to manifest embarrassment, and so to make enemies 
 hope that the Empire was internally and externally damaged 
 (ih. iii. 140). 
 
 It was unfortunately true that a large section of the 
 British Press persisted in representing Germany as the 
 one and sole enemy of England. Some country had to be 
 so represented if the British public was to submit with 
 patience to the heavy burden of a much magnified Navy ; 
 and Germany, with her new fleet in building, afforded the 
 obvious target. The question arises, whether more might 
 not have been done than was done to control the Press, 
 if peace was sincerely desired. King Edward was an inti- 
 mate friend of the editor of the Morning Post, Mr. Algernon 
 Borthwick, later Lord Glenesk ; of Mr. Edward Lawson, later 
 Lord Burnham, of the Daily Telegraph ; and of Mr. W. H. 
 Russell (Legge, King Edward in His True Colours, 228). 
 What line did these princes of the Press take in regard 
 to the German scare ? Did they contribute in the 
 smallest degree to the lessening of exaggerated alarms, or 
 to the promotion of friendlier feelings ? Is not the answer 
 notoriously in the negative ? Yet might not the manufac- 
 turers of public opinion been influenced more on the side 
 of peace, if peace was sincerely desired ? Could the King 
 do nothing to induce the Press to play what tune he 
 pleased ? Yet the Press during the whole of his reign was 
 remarkable for nothing so much as for the unfaltering 
 Jingoism of its tone. Professor Schiemann, who let nothing 
 in the British Press escape him, referred to the article in 
 
228 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 the National Review for November by its editor, Mr. L. J. 
 Maxse, as surpassing in enmity and unveracity anything 
 that had been put on the market for the last ten years ; 
 and that, as he said, was saying much (viii. 340). But 
 Germany's most malevolent enemies in the Press, he said, 
 were Mr. C. A. Pearson and Lord Northcliffe, who had made 
 the cultivation of hostility to Germany their speciaUty ; 
 nor could this easily be denied. 
 
 But if modern diplomacy did not show itself in the 
 purest possible light over the Bosnian episode, it is to its 
 credit that it averted a general conflagration. The Declara- 
 tion of the annexation also announced the cession to Turkey 
 of the Sandjak of Novi-Bazar, indicating that Austria was 
 not in pursuit of territorial acquisition. And Isvolsky, who 
 personified Russia, succeeded in preventing an Austro- 
 Servian war by satisfying Servia with Russian sympathy 
 and moral support, and by trying to get Austria to submit 
 all the questions affecting the BerUn treaty to a Conference 
 between the signatory Powers. Sir E. Grey, at Scarborough 
 on November 20th, made a speech which had a calming 
 effect in Germany : he expressed his beUef that no nation 
 in Europe entertained evil designs against England, and 
 this was taken as a refutation of the slanders that had been 
 rife against Germany for many years (Schiemann, viii. 363). 
 The German Chancellor also made two speeches in which 
 he endeavoured to pacify international opinion, and in- 
 dulged in some very frank criticisms of the Empire he 
 conducted. It inspired abroad, he admitted, more respect, 
 and even fear, than it did affection, and this from elementary 
 causes. Even Bismarck had been unable to extinguish 
 France's policy of revenge ; nor was it unnatural that the 
 commercial development of Germany should have changed 
 the once friendlier feelings of the English people, or rather 
 of a part of them, into mistrust, and even a certain anxiety. 
 But such antagonisms were not insuperable. Time would 
 heal or lessen many of them. He saw no danger of war 
 near at hand : what Germany needed was cool blood, fearless- 
 ness, and firmness ; quiet at home and abroad (Reden, iii. 
 
THE TRIPLE ENTENTE 229 
 
 144). On December 7, 1908, he made one of his admirable 
 speeches on foreign affairs. It was not true that Germany 
 had known long beforehand of Austria's intention to turn 
 her occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina into an annexa- 
 tion ; she was informed of it about the same time as Italy 
 and Russia. From the start Germany decided to further 
 Austrian interests to the best of her power, and Isvolsky, 
 the Russian Foreign Minister, was told at once that Germany 
 would stand by Austria in the proposed Conference. He 
 was convinced that Russian poHcy bore no hostility to 
 Germany, and that their old relations continued. And 
 Isvolsky, on his side, had reassured him that there were 
 no public or secret agreements between England and Russia 
 against Germany. Italy had shown much irritation at 
 Austria's policy in the Balkans, but he hoped that reconcilia- 
 tion would soon be effected ; it was Italy's interest to be 
 in alliance, not only with Germany, but also with Austria. 
 Morocco was again causing trouble, but with goodwill on 
 the part of all concerned an understanding on all points 
 might be hoped for. The treaty between Japan and the 
 United States of November 27, 1908, need cause no anxiety : 
 it conformed to Germany's principle of an open door for 
 trade, of the territorial status quo, and of the integrity and 
 independence of China. He concluded by associating him- 
 self with Mr. Asquith's words at the Guildhall on November 
 9th, when he had said : "I cannot forget the express 
 declaration of the Kaiser that the leading aim of his policy 
 is the maintenance of peace in Europe and of good relations 
 between Great Britain and Germany. In this spirit we 
 wish to act with other Powers, with Germany certainly 
 not less than with others." 
 
 Isvolsky's Circular Note to the Powers on December 23rd 
 also denoted a conciliatory attitude ; and his speech to 
 the Duma on December 24th, whilst affirming the fullest 
 harmony with France, declared that Russian policy was 
 in no sense directed against Germany, and that " no open 
 nor secret agreements directed against German interests 
 existed between Russia and England." He also pointed to 
 
280 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 the understanding lately effected with Italy, and affirmed 
 that since the crisis had begun Russia had acted in full accord 
 not only with France, her ally, but also with Italy. Which 
 meant the beginning of the defection of Italy from the 
 Triple Alliance : a defection for which British diplomacy 
 had long worked. Affirmations of the continuance and 
 solidity of the alliance had followed the meeting of the 
 Kaiser and the King of Italy at Venice on March 25th ; 
 the meeting of Prince Biilow and Baron Arenthal at Vienna 
 on March 29th, and of Prince Biilow with Signor Tittoni at 
 Rome on April 12th ; but Italian and Austrian ambitions were 
 setting in different directions ; it was noticed as a bad 
 sign that the Emperor of Austria had not returned at Rome 
 the visit paid to him at Vienna by the King of Italy ; and 
 Signor Fortis, an ex-Prime Minister, was congratulated in 
 the Italian Senate on December 21st for having ventured 
 to say that the only enemy which Italy had to fear was her 
 good ally Austria-Hungary. 
 
 But, however sweetly statesmen might speak, it was 
 on a note of growing international discord and of great 
 internal unrest in every country under the sun that the 
 year 1908 drew to its agitated close. Professor Schiemann 
 on the last day of the year attested *' a feeling of uneasiness " 
 as pervading the world ; the pacific speeches of statesmen 
 made no difference, and he traced it all to the one fact of 
 the persistence of England in her policy of encircling 
 Germany (viii. 401). Thus the year ended not unfitly with 
 one of the most destructive natural convulsions which 
 come sometimes to remind us that the very earth on which 
 we struggle and quarrel is held by us on a most precarious 
 tenure. In the earthquake that on December 28th destroyed 
 Messina and Reggio, and devastated an immense area in 
 Southern Calabria, it was computed that 200,000 people 
 lost their lives. It seemed as if the moral and political 
 disturbance of the human world was reflected in its physical 
 structure. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 1909 
 THE KING'S VISIT TO BERLIN 
 
 The King had rightly gauged the dangei of war from the 
 high-handed action of Austria in annexing Bosnia and 
 Herzegovina ; for the war-cloud hung heavily over Europe 
 all the winter. But the suspicion that Germany had been 
 behind Austria seems to have had no more foundation than 
 many similar suspicions. Prince Biilow declared that 
 Austria's Circular Note on the annexation had only been 
 handed in on October 7, 1908, at about the same time that 
 it reached Italy and Russia, though Germany had assured 
 Austria the previous day of her loyalty to the alliance. 
 On October 7th Germany informed the British Government 
 not only of her sympathy with the Young Turkish Revolu- 
 tion, but also of her intention not to leave Austria in 
 the lurch (Reden, iii. 184). And the Kaiser's evidence 
 coincides with his Chancellor's. The annexation, he told the 
 Czar, " was a genuine surprise for everybody, but par- 
 ticularly so for us, as we were informed about Austria's 
 intentions even later than you. I think it my duty to call 
 your attention to this, considering that Germany has been 
 accused of having pushed Austria to take this step. This 
 allegation is absurd," etc. (Letter 60, January 8th, 1909). 
 
 The situation singularly resembled that of July 1914, 
 when the long- threatening war-cloud actually burst. Turkey, 
 Servia, and Montenegro had their several claims to com- 
 pensation for the territories of which the annexation dis- 
 possessed them. When Servia, backed by England and 
 Russia, wished to submit her claims to a Conference of the 
 
 Powers, Baron Arenthal, the Austrian Foreign Minister, 
 
 m 
 
282 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 raised the objection that such a Conference would be too 
 hke a tribunal before which Austria would have to appear 
 in the light of a defendant : the same difficulty which 
 recurred in 1914. The Kaiser was annoyed that this pro- 
 posal of a Conference had been published in the French 
 papers before being communicated to Germany ; he com- 
 plained to the Czar of the ** tendency of Russian papers to 
 lean on England and France *' ; French, English, and 
 Russian papers had raised *' a jubilant shout about this 
 achievement of the new Triple Entente," and Germany could 
 not urge her ally " to consent to a programme which we 
 knew she would not accept, quite apart from the considera- 
 tion that the programme had been drawn up without us ; 
 our co-operation having been dispensed with in a manner 
 that was judged by the outer world as an intended demon- 
 stration. . . . Had Russia consulted us in the right 
 time, matters would not be in the awful muddle that they 
 are in now, nor in such a critical state." But the Kaiser 
 hoped with all his heart that a peaceful solution would be 
 found, and anything that he could do personally to that 
 end would certainly be done. 
 
 So wrote the Kaiser to the Czar on January 8, 1909, 
 showing the peril of the time and the Kaiser's personal desire 
 for peace. All the evidence shows that, however injudicious 
 his speeches often were, the Emperor strove for peace. As 
 Count Czernin says of him : " Both preceding and during 
 the war " he " never played the part attributed to him 
 by the Entente." Nevertheless the critical state of things 
 caused by the Bosnian episode gave great impetus to the 
 war spirit everywhere. At home never had the scare of 
 an invasion reached so great a height, nor the increase of 
 the German Navy been represented in colours so alarming. 
 Australia and New Zealand undertook to pay for two armed 
 cruisers for their threatened mother-country. The theatre, 
 too, was called into the service of the panic. At Wynd- 
 ham's Theatre on and after January 28th the play called 
 " The Englishman's Home " utilized the cry of our inse- 
 curity against invasion for the propagation of universal 
 
THE KING'S VISIT TO BERLIN 238 
 
 military service, and all through the spring months our 
 prospective naval strength as compared with Germany's 
 was hotly debated in Parliament and in the Press. And 
 at the head of the naval scare chorus were heard the wild 
 alarm-notes of Mr. Balfour, the leader of the Unionist 
 Opposition. 
 
 But a more pacific atmosphere was produced by the 
 visit of the King and Queen to Berlin from February 9th 
 to February 12th. Lord Crewe, as a Cabinet Minister, 
 accompanied the King on this visit, in compliance with a 
 widely expressed wish, but not without the unfailing Sir 
 Charles Hardinge ; and whilst Lord Crewe was free to talk 
 on African matters, he was not free to speak about arma- 
 ments, unless the Germans started that topic ; to Sir Charles 
 was left more important matters, such as the Balkan ques- 
 tion, the Bagdad railway, etc. Sir Charles thought the 
 public hope of good results from the visit exaggerated ; 
 the Foreign Office thought that there could be no improve- 
 ment in Anglo-German relations whilst the question of 
 German naval preparations lasted : the same opinion he 
 had expressed at Reval (Siebert, 722). Sir Charles spoke 
 with satisfaction of his talks with the Chancellor and with 
 Baron Schoen, but as the German Ministers did not raise 
 the question of naval armaments nor of the Bagdad rail- 
 way, nothing was said on these topics from the English 
 side, and the talk only resulted in pacific assurances from 
 the Chancellor. The King, suffering from a cold and from 
 fatigue, was very silent, leaving all political discussions to 
 Sir Charles, and himself only speaking to Prince Biilow 
 for a few minutes after the lunch at the British Embassy. 
 With his nephew he had no political talk. Only on the 
 platform of the BerHn station, just before departing, did 
 the King tell the Kaiser that he thought the excitement in 
 English public opinion and in the Press about the increase 
 of the German Navy laughable — the Kaiser must carry out 
 the naval programme of the Reichstag {ib. 726). The 
 main result of it all was that our Government became con- 
 vinced that Germany's efforts were for the maintenance of 
 
234 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 peace, and acted as a moderating influence upon Austria 
 (ib. 719, 723, 725). And Sir E. Grey thought that it would 
 lessen her fears of isolation {ib. 728). 
 
 The Berlin visit thus contributed to a pacification, 
 though it left essential differences unaltered. Baron Greindl 
 remarked that the coincidence of the visit with our greatly 
 increased Naval Budget, with our formidable squadron in 
 the North Sea, and with the creation of our Territorial 
 Army, not needed for defence, deducted from any real 
 improvement in our relations with Germany. What did 
 England intend to do with such an Army, unless she enter- 
 tained designs of aggression on the Continent ? was the 
 question asked. But Chancellor Biilow put the best face he 
 could on the episode. It was not so much, he said on 
 March 29th, the hearty reception given to their guests by 
 the German Court, nor the sympathetic participation in it 
 by all classes in Germany, as the words of real love for 
 peace and friendship spoken by the King and since con- 
 firmed in England in the Speech from the Throne, and in 
 the debate on the Address, which had made both countries 
 again conscious of their very many grounds for mutual 
 esteem and for pacific rivalry in the works of peace (Reden, 
 iii. 179). Germany, he said, was England's best customer, 
 and though there were in England, as in Germany, fanatics 
 who had no eyes for these moments of unification nor for 
 the community of interests which united the two nations, 
 he had the firm hope that such men would never succeed 
 in exercising a decisive influence on the political thought 
 of the British people (ib. iii. 180). But in this hope he 
 underestimated the power of the war-fanatics in both 
 countries. In any case, at a later date he looked back on 
 the Berlin visit, coming after the acute stage of the Bosnian 
 crisis, as having had a distinctly pacifying effect, and as 
 having marked the close of the King's policy of encircling 
 Germany ; he thought that it cast the light of a new hope 
 on the future relations between his country and ours 
 (Deutsche Politik, 60-3). 
 
 It also added not a little to the chance? of peace that 
 
THE KING'S VISIT TO BERLIN 285 
 
 the Berlin visit coincided on February 9th with an agree- 
 ment between Germany and France about Morocco, which 
 put a temporary end to their friction about it. It was 
 described by Prince Biilow as giving France, in recognition 
 of her special interest in the country, a political interest to 
 which she was justly entitled, without conferring on her 
 any right of property ; whilst it gave to Germany a share 
 in its trade, and thus, in place of mutual conflict, united 
 both countries in the common task of opening up Morocco 
 for their joint benefit (Reden, iii. 181-2). By this happy 
 agreement Germany was thus brought into harmony with 
 France, and incidentally with England, to the perceptible 
 lightening of the political sky. 
 
 One consequence of this was that, when in the course 
 of his Continental tour, which lasted from March 8th to 
 May 8th, King Edward met King Alfonso of Spain at San 
 Sebastian and at Biarritz on March 31st, and the King of 
 Italy at Baiae on April 29th, the jealousy aroused by the 
 Gaeta visit two years before found no appreciable expres- 
 sion, and the political weather-glass kept steadily to " fair." 
 But about the Baiae meeting something more needs to be 
 said than that it was merely a reaflirmation of Anglo- 
 Italian harmony (Ann. Reg., 1909, 293). The Russian 
 Charge d'Affaires at Rome, on June 22nd, thus reported 
 what happened : The meeting had been arranged on the 
 understanding .that there were to be no political discus- 
 sions ; nevertheless King Edward at two separate meetings 
 with the King of Italy and with Tittoni, the Foreign 
 Minister, raised the question of the balance of power in the 
 Adriatic and of Italy's attitude in a contingent Anglo- 
 German war. Neither the Italian King nor his Minister 
 vouchsafed any answer to this question, but both were 
 greatly surprised by this reference to an Anglo-German 
 war as no longer an academical possibility but as an imme- 
 diate probability. And, considering the recent visit to 
 Berlin and the Franco-German agreement about Morocco, 
 the story, which rests on the authority of Sir Rennell Rodd, 
 our Ambassador at Rome, shows how deeply the idea of a 
 
286 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 war with Germany possessed the mind and governed the 
 diplomacy of King Edward (Siebert, 449-50). To detach 
 Italy and, if possible, Austria from their alliance with 
 Germany was the King's leading idea throughout his reign, 
 and in the case of Italy the policy eventually succeeded 
 triumphantly. 
 
 Bosnia still remained a critical problem. Fortunately 
 Baron Arenthal succeeded on February 26th in settling 
 Turkey's claim to financial compensation, and on April 6th 
 in getting the consent of the Powers to such a change in 
 Article 29 of the Treaty of Berlin as consisted in freeing 
 the harbour of Antivari from Austrian control and in 
 removing the exclusion of warships from all Montenegrin 
 waters. But Servia gave greater difficulty. The Kaiser 
 was confident that there would be no Austro-German war, 
 because such a thing would not be at all like the Emperor 
 Francis Joseph, who was *' wise and judicious and such a 
 venerable gentleman " ; nor did he think that Arenthal 
 harboured any such design. But at the end of February 
 war seemed almost certain ; Austria's military prepara- 
 tions were costing her £40,000 a day ; she had two armies 
 prepared to operate on the Servian frontier, and a third on 
 the Montenegrin. The arming of Servia, said Prince Biilow 
 on March 29th, was a dangerous game ; he thought it 
 intolerable that the peace of Europe should be endangered 
 for the sake of Servia ; Servian aspirations were not worth 
 a war, far less a world-conflagration. Europe's need of 
 peace would prevent such a calamity ; he was encouraged 
 in this hope by the policy of Russia, and thought that all 
 lovers of peace owed a debt of gratitude to Russia's leading 
 statesmen and especially to the Czar (Reden, iii. 189). 
 
 This needed saying; for Russia had been growing very 
 restive, and diplomacy was drifting to its ordinary conclu- 
 sion when, towards the end of March, Germany, despite her 
 traditional indifference to the Balkans, suddenly intervened 
 with an intimation to St. Petersburg that, in the event of 
 Russia's assisting Servia in a possible war with Austria, 
 Germany would be bound by her alliance to stand by 
 
THE KING'S VISIT TO BERLIN 287 
 
 Austria, and that, if peace were to be maintained, Russia 
 must recognize the Austrian annexation. Russia then 
 yielded and ceased to support Servia, so that Servia had 
 to cHmb down, and to recognize the Bosnian annexation as 
 not encroaching on her rights ; she agreed to withdraw her 
 protests, to place her Army on a peace footing, and to try 
 to live on good terms with her neighbour. It was in refer- 
 ence to this incident that the Kaiser, on September 21st of 
 the following year, at the Vienna Town Hall, gained great 
 popularity with the German citizens of the Austrian capital, 
 where a part of the " Ring " was to be called after him, 
 by his allusion to having taken his stand " in shining 
 armour " by the side of his Austrian ally, a phrase which 
 sufficiently indicated the real meaning of the avoidance of 
 war (Ann. Reg., 1910, 313-14; MarguUi, 228). 
 
 The result was an undoubted success for German diplo- 
 macy. " It was Germany alone," wrote Baron Greindl on 
 April 1st, " that imposed peace. The new constellation 
 of the Powers, organized by the King of England, has 
 measured its strength against the Central European Union, 
 and has proved itself incapable of loosening that Union. 
 Hence the ** ill-humour shown " by The Times and other 
 organs. The Baron commented on the disappointment 
 felt in London on perceiving that the machine constructed 
 by the King with a view to coercing Germany had failed 
 to work when it was to have been made use of in the 
 Austro-Servian conflict ; " that is to say, at the very first 
 trial." Experience had shown to Russia the inefficiency 
 of the coalition formed by the late King of England, he 
 wrote on November 7, 1910, the first time that the said 
 coalition was put to the test. Nor was the view taken in 
 England very different ; Blunt, for instance, speaking of 
 the result as "a. great slap in the face to our Foreign 
 Office, and the King and Hardinge and Grey, who had 
 played his cards badly " (Diaries, ii. 251, April 2, 1909), 
 but naturally it was not in diplomatic human nature that 
 such a " slap in the face " should ever be forgotten or 
 forgiven. 
 
288 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 Earlier in the year, on the Kaiser's birthday 
 (January 27th), the statement of Count Pourtales, German 
 Ambassador at St. Petersburg, may have been true, that 
 the story of Germany's having in any way threatened Russia 
 was a false legend, and that history would prove that the 
 crisis had been settled by a friendly exchange of opinion 
 between the two countries {Schiemann, x. 41, February 2, 
 1910). But diplomacy has long learnt how to convey a 
 threat without expressing it in bald words. And the 
 Kaiser acted wisely in attributing most of the credit of 
 the peace to the Czar. " I want," he wrote to him on 
 April 3rd, *' to once more thank you sincerely for the loyal 
 and noble way in which you kindly led the way to help 
 to preserve peace. It is thanks to your high-minded and 
 unselfish initiative that Europe has been spared the horrors 
 of a universal war, and that the Holy Week will remain 
 unsullied by human blood, which would have been spilt. 
 You may celebrate your Easter with the elating knowledge 
 that everywhere in Europe thousands of families are on 
 their knees thanking the Lord for peace and praying for 
 his blessing on your head." Again he wrote on May 2nd to 
 the Czar, in reference to the settlement of Turkey's claims 
 on Bulgaria : "A few weeks ago, when affairs threatened 
 to become dangerous, your wise and courageous decision 
 secured peace for all the nations. I was most gratified that 
 through my helping co-operation you were able to fulfil 
 your task." But a more prosaic interpretation of the 
 Czar's efforts for peace was that Russia's military prepara- 
 tions for war were still incomplete ; it had been understood 
 at Reval that Russia would be in no position to help her 
 friends in a German war before 1914 or 1916. 
 
 The Kaiser was rightly convinced that in an agreement 
 between himself and the Czar lay the world's best hope for 
 peace. " If you and I," he wrote, " join in open and loyal 
 co-operation for the maintenance of Peace, which is my 
 most fervent wish, I am thoroughly convinced that Peace 
 will not only be maintained but not even be troubled. 
 There is not a shadow of doubt that Peace guarantees the 
 
THE KING'S VISIT TO BERLIN 239 
 
 vital interests, the security of welfare of our peoples as well 
 as of our dynasties.** There was in those days no stronger 
 pacifist in Europe than Wilhelm II, who paid such honour 
 to peace as usually to spell it with a capital P. Yet the 
 legend of history is that his heart was set all the time on 
 the war that ultimately ensued. Thus the diplomatic 
 rebuff to Russia had no appreciable effect on the good rela- 
 tions between the cousins of Germany and Russia. But 
 the crisis, by increasing hostility between Russia and 
 Austria, and between their respective Ministers, Isvolsky 
 and Arenthal, naturally made relations more delicate 
 between Russia and Germany, and to improve these, and to 
 keep Italy loyal to her alliance, was the main political motive 
 of the Kaiser's travels that spring. News of the fresh 
 revolution at Constantinople reached him on his way to 
 Corfu, and drew from him the just remark that the East 
 was *' a regular nightmare." He had hoped to meet King 
 Edward at Malta or Athens, but the King's engagements to 
 meet the King of Italy at Baiae did not permit of it, and 
 instead he and the Kaiserin, after leaving their magnificent 
 palace at Corfu, were entertained at Malta by the Duke of 
 Connaught (May loth). Two days later they were met 
 at Brindisi by the King and Queen of Italy, after which 
 they were welcomed at Vienna by the Austrian Emperor 
 with a State ceremonial. Could reliance be placed on her 
 Austrian and ItaHan allies, Germany might hope to hold 
 her own against her enemies in Europe ; but above all was 
 it desirable to keep Russia from joining them. Hence the 
 meeting between the Kaiser and the Czar at Bjorkoe off 
 Finland on June 17th, when there were the usual toasts 
 of friendship on board the Standard, to the great dissatis- 
 faction of France and ourselves, to whom any civilities 
 from Nicholas II to the Kaiser argued disloyalty to the 
 Triple Entente. But the Czar, who always hked to have 
 a foot in each camp, soon made amends by favouring both 
 France and England with his presence. On July 31st he 
 was received in his yacht by the French President at Cher- 
 bourg, but without any of that wild enthusiasm which had 
 
240 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 greeted him a few years before, when as yet it was hoped 
 that Russia would prove a tower of strength in that war 
 with Germany which was some day to recover Alsace- 
 Lorraine for France. On August 2nd the Czar left Cher- 
 bourg for the Solent, where he witnessed our great naval 
 review, and was met by some of the largest of our cruisers. 
 Protests against his reception by certain Liberal and Labour 
 members, and by two of our Bishops, were of no avail. 
 The Czar was duly impressed by the sight, and on August 3rd 
 Sir John Fisher told Lord Esher that the King had been 
 ** enormously gratified at the magnificent show of the Fleet 
 to put before the Emperor of Russia," and Lord Redesdale 
 testifies to the ** happy memory of a truly royal geniality 
 and kindness," which Nicholas II left behind him {Memories, 
 ii. 767). But the Czar was prompt to remove any impres- 
 sion of partiality by going straight from Cowes to the Kiel 
 Canal, where he again met his friend and cousin, the Kaiser. 
 
 The narrow escape from a great war was to the credit 
 of the monarchs and diplomatists of Europe ; nor would 
 Prince Biilow listen for a moment to the Socialist Ledebour's 
 claim that peace was due to the Socialists, and especially 
 to the revolutionary Socialists of Russia and Servia. He 
 defended the Czar and his Government against all attacks. 
 The idea that the world's peace ran any danger in these 
 days from the ambitions of Sovereigns or the quarrels of 
 Ministers did not tally with the facts of the time, for most 
 of the conflicts of the last few decades had arisen from no 
 such causes, but rather from the passions of public opinion 
 working on the Executive through Parliaments and the 
 Press. Contemporary monarchs were all peace-loving, as 
 were their Governments, and the last few weeks had proved 
 the same of the diplomatists (ib. iii. 197). 
 
 In the same speech of March 29th Prince Biilow touched 
 with his usual tact on Anglo-German relations. There had 
 been conversations about an Anglo-German agreement to 
 limit the cost and the size of their respective navies, but 
 as there had been no English proposal to serve as a basis 
 of discussion, the matter had fallen through. But the 
 
THE KING'S VISIT TO BERLIN 241 
 
 German Government would do all in its power to promote 
 such friendly relations between the two countries as would 
 leave no room for suspicion. As to the recent Anglo- 
 Russian agreement about Persia, it did not affect German 
 interests, which were purely commercial, not political ; it 
 rather promoted German interests, as it safeguarded the 
 independence and integrity of Persia, and kept the ** open 
 door '* for trade {ib. iii. 191-3). The Enghsh complaint 
 that Germany had refused English proposals for a reduc- 
 tion of naval armaments was in conflict with the German 
 contention that no proposals of a practical nature had 
 ever been made to her (Reventlow, 378). 
 
 But unfortunately neither the pacification of the Near 
 East nor the calming influence of King Edward's visit to 
 Berhn had more than a superficial effect on the agitation 
 of Europe. In England the Liberal Imperiahsts and the 
 militarists carried all before them, and the events of the 
 year intensified the enmity between Germany and England 
 which their naval rivalry naturally produced. No man at 
 the time was more sensible of the future possible danger 
 from Germany than Sir John Fisher, who wrote that "the 
 only thing in the world that England had to fear was 
 Germany, and none else *' ; but he understood the hollo w- 
 ness of the naval agitation. On March 21, 1909, he wrote 
 to Lord Esher that, after four years' building, our Navy 
 had " now culminated in two complete fleets in home waters, 
 each of which is incomparably superior to the whole German 
 Fleet mobihzed for war. . . . This can't alter for years, 
 even if we were supinely passive in our building " (Memories, 
 189). And on the same date he wrote : " The Germans 
 are not building in this feverish haste to fight you ! No I 
 it's the daily dread of a second Copenhagen which they 
 know a Pitt or a Bismarck would execute on them ! Cease 
 building, or I strike ! " (ib. 190). From the point of view, 
 therefore, of those who really knew the facts about the 
 respective navies the whole panic appeared in the hght of 
 an organized intrigue. And two years later, on September 20, 
 19 1 1, Lord Fisher expressed himself to Lord Esher as 
 
 16 
 
242 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 knowing for a certainty that " the Germans were in a blue 
 funk of the British Navy and were quite assured that 942 
 German merchant steamers would be gobbled up in the 
 first forty-eight hours of war, and that they were also 
 in fear of our landing 100,000 troops ; there was a lovely 
 spot " he knew of only 90 miles from Berlin ; 14 miles 
 of sandy beach in Pomerania (ib. 203). And as the Kaiser 
 also knew of this " lovely spot," and all his Generals and 
 Admirals too, the German fear of an English invasion was 
 probably greater than our own fear of an invasion from 
 them in these years that led up to the war. 
 
 Rumour is the ready instrument of the war-makers. 
 Just as in 1793 the war-feehng was assisted by stories of 
 French attempts to poison the New River water with 
 arsenic, or of a sergeant in a brown coat who drilled numbers 
 of men in a dark room preparatory to issuing forth and 
 destroying the British Constitution, so now some rifles 
 bought by the Society of Miniature Rifle Clubs for con- 
 version into ** miniature '* practice rifles and stored in a 
 cellar opposite the Law Courts became converted by rumour 
 into 50,000 stands of Mauser rifles, with 160 rounds of ball 
 cartridge for each stored in a cellar near Charing Cross, 
 and ready for the 66,000 German soldiers already in 
 England ; and hot-air balloons sent aloft for adver- 
 tising motor-cars became airships of undoubted German 
 origin and hostile design. Nor was the hysterical frame 
 of mind thus produced much reheved by the entertain- 
 ment at the Waldorf Hotel on May ist of some German 
 Labour leaders by the International Arbitration League, 
 when Mr. John Burns talked too soon of the collapse of 
 the attempt to foment an Anglo-German war, and predicted 
 that there would never be a war that would involve Great 
 Britain, Germany, France, and Russia. British Labour 
 leaders paid a return visit to Germany (May 28th to 
 June loth), and British ministers of rehgion went there 
 also in June as angels of peace, and the German Burgo- 
 masters and municipal councillors, who visited England in 
 the last week of May, were received by the King at 
 
THE KING'S VISIT TO BERLIN 243 
 
 Buckingham Palace on May 24th, entertained at the Guild- 
 hall and the Mansion House, and made or listened to 
 speeches that favoured friendship between England and 
 Germany. 
 
 Well-intentioned as were such efforts for peace, what 
 could they avail against a Press that seemed for the most 
 part bent on war and could play what tune it pleased on 
 the pubhc mind ? '* The fact must be taken note of," wrote 
 the Kaiser to the Czar on June 8, 1909, " that the papers 
 mostly create public opinion. Some of them err through 
 their ignorance and lack of correct information ; they 
 scarcely see farther than their own noses' length. But 
 more dangerous and at the same time more loathsome is 
 that part of the Press which writes what it is paid for. 
 The scoundrels who do such dirty work are in no fear of 
 starving. They will always continue to incite the hostility 
 of one nation against the other, and when at last through 
 their hellish devices they have brought about the much- 
 desired collision, they placidly sit down and watch the 
 fight which they organized, well assured that the profit 
 will be theirs, no matter what the issue may be. In this 
 way in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred what is vulgarly 
 called ' public opinion ' is a mere forgery." 
 
 In saying this the Kaiser was thinking not so much of 
 a possible collision between Germany and England as of a 
 possible one between Germany and Russia. The Bosnian 
 question having been settled without war, he was surprised 
 that, instead of earning gratitude, he and the Czar had 
 " reaped nothing but blame " ; " especially the Press in 
 general has behaved in the basest way against me.'* 
 " Some papers had even credited him with having been 
 the author of the Austrian annexation : an incident which, 
 he declared, so far from having been taken under German 
 instigation, had occurred to Germany's surprise and without 
 her knowledge (January 8, 1909). " Personally," he wrote, 
 " I am totally indifferent to newspaper gossip, but I cannot 
 refrain from a certain feeling of anxiety that, if not con- 
 tradicted at once, the foul and filthy hes which are 
 
244 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 freely circulated about my policy and my country will 
 tend to create bitterness between our two peoples by 
 virtue of their constant uncontradicted repetition." Was 
 the Kaiser's language too strong ? " What sells a news- 
 paper ? . . /* wrote Mr. Kennedy Jones, who, as one of 
 the founders and directors of the Daily Mail, ought to know. 
 "The first answer is, War ; war not only creates a supply 
 of news, but a demand for it. ... A paper has only to 
 be able to put on its placard ' A Great Battle ' for its sales 
 to mount up " (Fleet Street and Downing Street, 198). The 
 Kaiser recognized a danger of universal application to the 
 world's peace, and perceived the working forces which 
 were sedulously being employed to produce such an estrange- 
 ment between Russia and Germany as would draw Russia 
 definitely and resistlessly into the current of that pro- 
 French policy which King Edward with the best intentions 
 had done so much to advance. *' The peace of the world," 
 wrote Baron Greindl on February 13th, " has never been 
 more seriously jeopardized than since the King of England 
 busied himself with trying to consoHdate it." 
 
 Another episode which tended to counteract the good 
 effect of the interchange of Anglo-German courtesies was 
 the Imperial Conference of the newspaper editors of the 
 British Empire which occupied the greater part of June. 
 This Conference gave the Liberal Imperialists the most 
 splendid opportunity for fomenting the naval alarm. 
 First Lord Rosebery presided, and complained of the insuffi- 
 ciency of our preparations to meet the silent warfare of 
 naval armaments. Were we reverting to barbarism or 
 would the working-men of the world arise and stop the 
 competition ? Sir E. Grey, on June 7th, endorsed *' every 
 word Lord Rosebery had said " about armaments. Balfour 
 agreed with both Rosebery and Grey, and Haldane with all 
 three of them. Lord Roberts, of course, raised a note of 
 alarm in the interests of universal military training. Lord 
 Morley raised the question whether the influence of the 
 Press was directed to the promotion of peace, and Mr. 
 Churchill advised it to refrain from causing international 
 
THE KING'S VISIT TO BERLIN 245 
 
 friction, and to proclaim the solidarity of Christendom 
 and the interdependence of nations. But it was reserved 
 to Lord Milner to make the worst forecast of the future. 
 He thought the idea of " the rebarbarization of Europe," 
 if it meant a greater tendency to settle disputes by war, 
 *' dreadful nonsense," such tendency being less than ever 
 before, because the national armies of Europe made for 
 the maintenance of peace ! 
 
 All this speechifying added fuel to the fire. The Colonial 
 delegates were made to reahze the danger of the Empire 
 to which they belonged and their duty of defending it, 
 though possibly the naval review of the Home and Atlantic 
 Fleets of 144 warships at Spithead on June 12th may have 
 helped to lessen their anxiety. In any case they were 
 much impressed by the evidence of the motherland's readi- 
 ness for war as attested by the naval and military displays 
 they witnessed, and one Australian editor went so far as 
 to declare his inability to understand the pessimism enter- 
 tained by Enghshmen about their own country. The 
 newspapers had led them to expect to see nothing but 
 decadence and unpreparedness for war, nor could they 
 understand that this was all part of the Jingo game (Ann. 
 Reg., 1909, 150). Great displeasure was caused by Sir 
 John Fisher's speech at the Guildhall on November 9th, 
 when he affirmed the instant readiness of our fleet for war, 
 and bade the public sleep quiet in their beds. He warned 
 it against being frightened by bogeys of invasion such as 
 were periodically raised by all sorts of leagues, and reduced 
 the story of 100,000 German soldiers practising embarkation 
 in the German Fleet — a number that would require hundreds 
 and thousands of tons for transport — to the dimensions of 
 one solitary regiment that had been embarked for some trifling 
 manoeuvres. And if this was the opinion of the best naval 
 authority in the kingdom, some other cause for the naval 
 alarm of these years must be sought for than any real 
 fear for the safety of the country. 
 
 Meantime events in Germany were moving badly for 
 the Chancellor, who between the SociaUsts and the Centre 
 
246 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VH 
 
 Party found himself in a position that was fast becoming 
 untenable. In a speech on January 19th he championed 
 the cause of the Kaiser against the Socialists, who threatened 
 the monarchy with destruction, nor hesitated to criticize 
 the monarch. He boasted that during his twelve years of 
 office he had done his utmost to protect the Crown from 
 misapprehension, and to prevent a spHt between the Crown 
 and the country. All men knew, he said, that the King 
 and Kaiser was a ruler whose mind was filled with great 
 ideals and inspired with the wish to lead Germany forward ; 
 who had promoted trade and industry and science as few 
 before him ; who had not neglected the needs of agri- 
 culture ; who had created the Fleet, perfected the Army, 
 and maintained peace (Reden, iii. 175-6). And on March 
 29th he made two statements about the Kaiser which 
 were of some historical interest. He repeated that it 
 was on his own advice and responsibility that the Kaiser 
 had gone to Tangier on March 31, 1905 ; and he said that 
 the famous telegram of the Kaiser to President Kruger 
 was not despatched on the Kaiser's own initiative, but at 
 the advice of his responsible Ministers ; it was an act of 
 State, not a personal act (ib. iii. 194-5). On March 30th 
 the Prince repelled with not unjust indignation the charge 
 of lack of loyalty levelled at him by Gotz von Olenhusen : 
 for twenty-four years his guiding star had been the welfare 
 of the Kaiser and that of his country, which he regarded 
 as inextricably bound together (ib. iii. 199). " Attack me 
 as much as you please," he exclaimed to the Socialists, 
 " but do leave the Kaiser out of the debate." He con- 
 tended that the Kaiser's twenty years of work for the 
 good of his Empire, in the face of much misunder- 
 standing, exaggerated criticism and unjust attacks, entitled 
 him to a liberal judgment ; it was time they returned to 
 the old tradition which left the person of the Kaiser out 
 of the region of debate (ib. iii. 201-2). In answer to the 
 challenge thrown out to him to dispute the existence of a 
 Camarilla ruling the Court, he not only disputed it, but 
 repulsed the whole gossip about it with the utmost deci- 
 
THE KING'S VISIT TO BERLIN 247 
 
 sion. There was no Camarilla at Court, and, if there were, 
 it would have no influence. But he knew that the longer 
 a man was Chancellor the stronger swelled the chorus of 
 revenge ; this was a fate he shared with his great prede- 
 cessor, Bismarck, whom he considered '* the greatest states- 
 man of the last century." 
 
 In this embittered state of political feeling in Germany 
 the question of the Empire's finance came as a clear signal 
 of impending danger. Finance, which has wrecked so 
 many empires, was now to wreck the German Government. 
 It was impossible to meet the growing expenses of the 
 Empire without growing sources of income, and whence 
 could such sources flow but from the pockets of the tax- 
 payers ? The Government's idea was a direct tax upon 
 inheritance and an indirect tax upon brandy and tobacco. 
 But the first was as strongly opposed by tne Right or Con- 
 servative side of the Reichstag as the last was by the Left. 
 In dividing the Right from the Left the Centre Party saw a 
 chance of dividing the Coalition Block of Liberals and Con- 
 servatives which had supported the Chancellor for so many 
 years. So on June i6th the Chancellor made a gallant speech 
 to save his Government. He declared himself unperturbed 
 by the social ostracism to which the strongest party in 
 the House exposed him ; in England people were not so 
 small-minded as to suffer political differences to affect their 
 personal and social relations, and he hoped it might some 
 day be so in Germany, and that a man for mere difference 
 of opinion would not be set down as a rogue or a fool. 
 He hoped that patriotic feelings would prevail over narrow- 
 mindedness and party rancour. For weeks the papers had 
 been discussing whether he should remain in ofiice or not ; 
 but this did not depend on the papers nor on his own 
 wishes ; it rested on the Kaiser's belief in his ability to 
 serve the State abroad and at home, and on his own opinion 
 on the subject. 
 
 But all this was oratory thrown away. When it came 
 to voting on June 24th, 195 votes to 187 declared against 
 the succession duty. A majority of the Conservatives, the 
 
248 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 Centre Party, and the Poles had won the day. Prince 
 Billow took no further part in the Reichstag, though at 
 the Kaiser's request he continued in oifico till on July loth 
 Bethmann-HoUweg became his successor as Chancellor. On 
 June 26th he laid his resignation before the Kaiser at Kiel, 
 and on July 14th he received from the Kaiser his final 
 release, accompanied by a very flattering letter of regret 
 and by the Order of the Black Eagle with diamonds. The 
 Kaiser referred to their many years of confidential co-opera- 
 tion in the government of the Empire, and expressed the 
 warmest gratitude for his great services to himself and the 
 country (ib. iii. 226-7). 
 
 The incident was a misfortune for the prospects of 
 peace; for, earnest for peace though his successor was. 
 Prince Biilow had been a great defender of the peace of 
 the world. It would be hard to find a speech of his that 
 was not of a pacifying and calming character ; he had 
 done what was possible to keep in subjection the passionate 
 and inflammatory elements of his own country. His, too, 
 was the rather new doctrine that it behoved a modern 
 diplomatist, not only to try to get a " good Press " in the 
 country to which he was accredited for the country he 
 served, but to create an atmosphere of confidence and 
 sympathy between Court and Court, between Government 
 and Government, between Parliament and Parliament, 
 between Press and Press (ib. iii. 310). What a different 
 world might we not inhabit, had such a rule been of 
 traditional observance. Addressing the Peace Congress in 
 the garden of his palace on September 22, 1908, the Prince 
 reminded his hearers how much they could do to make 
 international relations more friendly, and also how much 
 they might do to poison them and turn them to enmity 
 {ib. iii. 335). He recognized that in the world as it is wars 
 were no longer due to the caprice of individuals or of 
 Cabinets, but were born of public opinion, which in its 
 turn was the product of the Press, according as that instru- 
 ment used its powers beneficently or injuriously (ib. iii. 
 295). He rightly ascribed one of the greatest dangers of 
 
THE KING'S VISIT TO BERLIN 249 
 
 the time to the exaggerated importance that newspaper 
 readers were apt to attach to remarks of persons in high 
 position, regardless of the circumstances or the mood in 
 which they were uttered. One of his last public acts in 
 the month of his defeat was the despatch of a telegram 
 to the English clergy then visiting Berlin, in which he said 
 that their efforts for peace would always find in him and 
 the Imperial Government unfailing support ; it was their 
 task in common with the clergy of other countries to work 
 for the peace of the nations and to oppose peace-perturbing 
 tendencies, and he hoped that they would return home 
 with the information that on the other side of the North 
 Sea dwelt a peaceable hard-working people which, like its 
 Government, cherished the lively wish to live with its 
 brethren on the other side in peace and in good neighbourly 
 fashion. 
 
 It was the custom, unfortunately, in the English Press 
 to reject and ridicule the Chancellor's pacific assurances as 
 the mere outcome of a crafty and ill-intentioned mind. 
 This was the line taken, for instance, by the anonymous 
 writer of two articles in the Quarterly Review for July and 
 October 1908, called respectively " The German Peril " and 
 " A Rejoinder to Prince Biilow.** Yet it is difficult to see 
 how any statesman desirous of peace can otherwise achieve 
 his aim than by the constant reiteration of pacific and 
 conciliatory counsels. To set against these certain angry 
 or offensive criticisms of this country indulged in long 
 ago by an irritable professor, like the German historian 
 Treitschke, was needlessly to keep alive a spirit of animosity 
 between England and Germany which could only result, as 
 it did ultimately, in a terrible war destined to blight the 
 happiness of the world for untold generations. If every 
 irritable remark of a writer or professor made some twenty 
 years earlier is to be urged as a just cause of war, and to 
 weigh for more than years of conciliatory speaking by the 
 responsible statesmen of a country, then peace becomes a 
 more hopeless cause than ever. Prince Billow's favourite 
 authors were Goethe and Schopenhauer, the pessimist 
 
250 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 philosopher, but he found it possible to combine an opti- 
 mistic spirit in practice with a pessimistic theory about 
 the world. His optimism he described as nothing else than 
 trust in the good sense of the German people (ib. iii. 295). 
 He assigned to a popular lunacy, both in his own country 
 and in ours, the cause of our embittered relations ; nor, 
 indeed, is it improbable that epidemics of mental delusion 
 pass, like physical epidemics, over whole populations from 
 time to time under the stimulus of a raging Press propa- 
 ganda which fans into flame countless slumbering animosi- 
 ties, just as a strong wind drives a fierce fire before it over 
 a grouse moor. 
 
 The Chancellor had just passed his sixtieth birthday 
 on May 3, 1909. He had conducted the Foreign Affairs 
 of his country since June 26, 1897, and the Chancellorship 
 since 1901. M. Jules Hurst, of the Figaro, was struck by 
 the similarity of his voice with that of King Edward 
 (ib. iii. 258). But his resignation made little apparent 
 difference on the course of events. How narrowly he saved 
 Europe from war was not generally understood ; during 
 the King's visit to Berlin in February 1909 it was, says 
 Baron Greindl, '* recognized on both sides that the greatest 
 efforts were necessary in order to prevent a war from arising 
 out of the Balkan question " (February 17th). The jealousies 
 'Detween the double groups of Alliances still continued with 
 all their potentialities of a sudden surprise. In August 
 the King again spent some weeks at Marienbad, whither, 
 as in the preceding years, M. Clemen ceau motored over 
 from Carslbad to lunch with the King on August 15th. 
 The meeting lasted an hour, and from the garden below 
 the animated conversation might be witnessed which the 
 French statesman admitted to have been of a political 
 character. Possibly the obduracy of the old Austrian 
 Emperor came under review. The King's offer before 
 leaving England to visit the Emperor, as in former years, 
 had been this time politely refused, and all that passed 
 between the monarchs was the sending of a birthday present 
 to Francis Joseph on August i8th and the latter 's grateful 
 
THE KING'S VISIT TO BERLIN 251 
 
 acknowledgment of the same. On no account would the 
 latter face the King again ; and Baron Margutti's surmise 
 is probably correct that " the Emperor was tired of the 
 mental struggle to which the personal intercourse with the 
 King had regularly exposed him ; he wished to avoid them." 
 Not even for the bait of Servia would he sever his friendship 
 with Germany. 
 
 Some other incidents showed how things were developing. 
 On October 17th, on the occasion of the unveiling of a 
 monument to the French who had fallen at Weissemburg 
 in 1870, a popular demonstration was made in favour of 
 France ; and so again at Mulhausen in November, when 
 the German National Anthem was followed, and corrected, 
 by the singing of the Marseillaise. 
 
 And in Russia the Neo-Slav movement against Germany 
 and Austria grew more menacing, though the good rela- 
 tions between the Kaiser and the Czar kept in subjection 
 the enmity that divided their subjects. When Nicholas II 
 wished to visit the King of Italy in October, the Kaiser 
 offered him all facilities for his journey through Germany, 
 but it was significant of the continued tension between 
 Russia and Austria that the Czar made a wide circuit to 
 avoid treading on Austrian soil, to the great displeasure of 
 Austria (Siebert's Aktenstilcke, 451). The Russian and 
 Italian monarchs, attended by their respective Ministers, 
 met at Racconigi : a return visit on the part of the Czar 
 for the King of Italy's visit to Russia in 1902. The meet- 
 ing was admittedly of political importance, and provoked 
 different emotions in different countries. In England it 
 gave great satisfaction as indicating the inclination of Italy 
 to the side of the Triple Entente {ih. 451-2). In Germany 
 it increased mistrust, as another step to her isolation and 
 as an attempt to shatter the Triple Alliance {ih. 702-3). 
 Questions affecting Turkey and Italy's special claims to 
 Tripoli were discussed [ih. 461), but it was not till 1919 
 that the secret agreement made at Racconigi was revealed. 
 Russia promised Italy a friendly attitude towards her 
 designs upon Tripoli in return for a similar attitude from 
 
252 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 Italy whenever the question might again arise of the passage 
 of Russian warships through the Dardanelles (Morel, Diplo- 
 macy Revealed, 143 ; Reventlow, 389). Thus Italy drew ever 
 farther away from her German ally to the side of the 
 Triple Entente, and if the King's diplomacy had suffered 
 defeat over the Bosnian crisis, his success in detaching 
 Italy from Germany left little to be desired. The most 
 that Germany could hope for from Italy in the ** coming 
 war *' was a vacillating neutrality. 
 
 But in England during the autumn the heated state 
 of domestic politics threw all questions of foreign politics 
 into the shade. The year was marked by some consider- 
 able legislative successes. The Act for the Union of the 
 South African Colonies conferred distinction on the Liberal 
 Parliament, and the same may be said of the Trade Board 
 Act, for the diminution of sweated labour ; of the House 
 Planning Act, for the improvement of the housing con- 
 ditions of the nation ; of the Labour Exchange Act, for 
 facilitating exchanges of employment. No response, indeed, 
 was made to Ireland's desire or demand for Home Rule ; 
 she had to console herself with a measure for the reduction 
 of her noxious weeds, her thistles, docks, and ragwort. 
 But the year derived its chief title to celebrity less from 
 its few successes than from its most signal failure. The 
 Finance Bill, Mr. Lloyd George's Budget, was introduced 
 on April 29th, and its discussion occupied seventy-three 
 days over a period of six months, entailing as many as 
 554 divisions. A mighty deficit, consequent mainly on the 
 naval expenditure caused by the naval panic, had to be 
 met by a correspondently mighty taxation. 
 
 When Liberal Imperialism thus presented its bill, few 
 there were who liked it. Super-tax, too, put in its first 
 appearance ; and new duties, such as " Increment Value 
 Duty," " Reversion Duty," and " Undeveloped Land Duty," 
 turned many a man's hair grey in his effort to understand 
 them. Lord Rosebery called the new Budget " the end of 
 all things," and it was hoped that the House of Lords, 
 greatly daring, would venture for once to reject a Money 
 
THE KING'S VISIT TO BERLIN 253 
 
 Bill, regardless of constitutional precedent. The crisis 
 became so acute that the King's influence as a peacemaker 
 was either sought or offered. First of all Lord Rosebery 
 and Lord Cawdor saw him at Balmoral ; then Mr. Asquith 
 on October 5th ; finally Lord Lansdowne and Mr. Balfour 
 at Buckingham Palace. But to little purpose so far as 
 pacification went. The House of Lords, on November 30th, 
 following the advice given by Lord Milner at Glasgow on 
 November 26th to " damn the consequences," threw out 
 the Finance Bill by 350 to 75 ; or, to use the euphemism 
 of the time, they referred the Bill to the people. The 
 challenge was at once taken up by Mr. Asquith on 
 December 2nd, who denounced their action as a " breach 
 of the Constitution and a usurpation of the rights of the 
 Commons." Thus our Constitution of two antagonistic 
 Chambers came to its inevitable clash ; only the national 
 will, as expressed by a General Election, could decide the 
 issue between them ; and to this ordeal the House of Lords 
 successfully forced the Liberal House of Commons. The 
 Lords had won the first round, but others must inevitably 
 follow, and on this note of bitter internal conflict this 
 troubled year came to its inglorious end. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 1910 
 THE END AND RESULTS OF THE REIGN 
 
 Chacun, c'est la loi supreme, 
 Rame, helas, jusq'a la fin. 
 Pas d'homme, 6 fatal probleme ! 
 Qui ne laboure ou ne seme 
 Sur quelque chose de vain ! 
 
 Victor Hugo: Soirde en Mer. 
 
 The House of Lords, having successfully forced a General 
 Election on the country, the first month of the year was 
 wholly given up to the creation of a new Parliament. No 
 single issue could be kept before the electors, and the 
 rejected Finance Bill, the Veto of the Lords, Tariff Reform, 
 and Home Rule competed in fairly equal measure for the 
 favour of the popular voice. That voice consequently 
 failed of clear expression ; and the result of all the tur- 
 moil was the reduction of the Liberal vote in Parliament 
 from 373 to 274, and the increase of the Unionist vote from 
 167 to 272, including 43 Liberal Unionists. Mr. Asquith 
 could count on an efficient majority only so long as he 
 could rely on the Irish and Labour vote : a reliance of most 
 precarious value. 
 
 Grave Constitutional perplexities, involving the action 
 of the King, confronted the country. Could the King be 
 persuaded to use his veto for the protection of the Lords 
 against any restriction of their power over legislation, or, 
 on the other hand, could he be persuaded to create enough 
 new Peers to override any refusal on their part to bow to 
 the expressed will of the representative Chamber ? Only 
 
 254 
 
THE END AND RESULTS OF THE REIGN 255 
 
 the future could say, and in the meantime the Constitution 
 was on the rocks. 
 
 But it was on our relations with Germany that the 
 election had most effect, and that a most pernicious one. 
 The Unionist cry for a still larger Navy and for conscription 
 depended for success on maintaining and increasing the 
 German alarm, and consequently such alarm became the 
 leading note of the election. It fell to Mr. Baltour, as 
 the Unionist leader, to conduct the chorus of panic, by a 
 speech at Hanley on January 4th. 
 
 For himself, he did not believe in war with Germany as 
 inevitable, but the statesmen and diplomatists of the lesser 
 Powers did believe in it, and expected the defeat of Great 
 Britain owing to her insensibility to her responsibilities. 
 Unnamed Germans of position were quoted as asking : 
 " Do you suppose we should ever allow Great Britain to 
 adopt Tariff Reform ? " and such a question caused even 
 Mr. Balfour's blood to rise to boiHng-point. This speech 
 came in for some ridicule at the hands of Mr. Lloyd George 
 on January 7th, who declared it the last resort of a 
 desperate man, and who justly denounced such " tail- 
 twisting '* as a dangerous game for the peace of Europe ; 
 whilst Sir Edward Grey said, in answer to it, that the 
 country had never had less reason to talk of war than at 
 that moment. But the alarm was too popular and too 
 well sustained by various interests to be so easily dispelled, 
 and Mr. Robert Blatchford's letters of panic to the Daily 
 Mail, republished as a pamphlet called England and Germany, 
 found a ready sale in the streets at the price of a penny. 
 In Germany the only redeeming feature of the electoral 
 campaign against her was that all who sailed under the 
 Liberal flag shook themselves free of this nightmare about 
 Germany, but the fact that the French Press took pas- 
 sionately the Unionist side was regarded as a sign of the 
 revival of the anti-German policy of M. Delcasse (Schiemann, 
 X. 20-1). 
 
 Professor Schiemann complained of men of rank and 
 importance, during the election and before it, advocating 
 
256 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 in newspapers and journals the destruction of the German 
 Fleet as the main object of English poHcy : for the last 
 several years in all parts of the world German undertakings 
 had met with the united disfavour and counteraction of 
 England and France and Russia. To this rule there was 
 scarcely an exception, and it appHed equally to Germany's 
 commercial as to her political action (ib. x. 141). On the 
 other hand, Germany was very responsive to the more con- 
 ciliatory articles of other writers, as to those of Mr. Edward 
 Dicey on " England and Germany " in the January and 
 February numbers of the Empire Review, in which he 
 expressed disapproval of the Unionist attacks on Germany 
 during the election, and pleaded for friendship between the 
 two countries. Their friendship would ensure the peace of 
 Europe, whilst conflict between them would be highly 
 disastrous for the whole world. It had been foohsh to 
 talk of a danger of war, when there was no sign of such 
 danger. He had no more belief in a German intention of 
 war against England than in such an English intention 
 against Germany ; and if Germany was wilhng to pay the 
 cost of a fleet, it was no function of ours to hinder her 
 (ih. X. 14, 62). Such an utterance of common sense was 
 so unusual that the effect it produced in Germany shows 
 at how small a cost of words peace might have been 
 preserved. 
 
 But nothing could prevail against the panic-mongers, 
 whose appeals to fears and passions were more numerous 
 and persistent than any appeals to reason. Such an appeal 
 to reason was made by the King on the occasion of the 
 Kaiser's birthday (January 27th), when he expressed in 
 a letter to his nephew a strong wish for the co-operation 
 of England and Germany on behalf of European peace, 
 which together they could always ensure (Lord Esher's 
 Influence of King Edward, 56). The Kaiser's answer is at 
 present unknown. Another appeal to reason was made 
 on the same occasion by Count Metternich, the German 
 Ambassador in London, who at a banquet at the Hotel 
 Cecil tried to combat the fictitious nervousness of the day. 
 
THE END AND RESULTS OF THE REIGN 25r 
 
 He denied that Germany had any thought of further war, 
 or aspirations for more territory ; her sole concern was 
 for her industrial development : she desired new markets 
 lor her ever-increasing export trade ; and that was all that 
 was meant by her Weltpolitik. She was under no necessity 
 for wishing to become the strongest Power at sea, nor had 
 she any intention of competing for world-supremacy (Ann, 
 Reg., 1910, 14). Prince Henry of Prussia, on his visit to 
 the King and Queen, made a similar declaration on 
 February 23rd, in reply to an address of welcome from the 
 Anglo-German Friendship Committee. He hoped that Eng- 
 lish confidence in the German Government and Emperor 
 ^ould correspond with Germany's confidence in the " dearly 
 beloved and much -respected '* Sovereign of Great Britain 
 and her Government. Such assurances had been made 
 over and over again by Prince Biilow and others ; but 
 ihey beat in vain against the poHtical advantage which 
 the theory of invincible German enmity conferred on the 
 Unionist political programme. In consequence, the Navy 
 Estimates for the year soared up to 40 millions : a sum 
 which no Tory Government would have ventured to pro- 
 pose, but which the infusion of the Liberal Ministry by 
 Liberal Imperialism rendered easily attainable. 
 
 On March 7th the King left England for Biarritz, taking 
 Paris on the way. The entente with France had developed 
 into something very indistinguishable from an alliance, 
 and the words of Lord Palmerston to Lord Clarendon of 
 September 20, 1857, seemed wellnigh forgotten : *' In our 
 alliance with France we are riding a runaway horse, and 
 must always be on our guard." But it was health rather 
 than politics that now drew the King to Biarritz. Before 
 he left, the Convocations of York and Canterbury presented 
 him with addresses recognizing his efforts for the peace of 
 the world, and drawing from him the answer that his con- 
 stant prayer was that his country might be spared the 
 perils and miseries of war involving the ruin of millions. 
 But, though it is pleasing to think of this recognition of 
 iiis work as his last contact with the world of politics, the 
 
 17 
 
258 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 prospect of peace was seldom less promising either at home 
 or abroad. 
 
 At home the collision between the two Houses seemed 
 hardly terminable without a dangerous resort to the Royal 
 prerogative, and the resolutions introduced on March 21st 
 for the curtailment of the Lords* Veto, followed as they 
 were by excited debates, went to the very roots of the 
 Constitutional fabric. Foreign opinion regarded April 14th 
 as one of the great days of English history (Schiema7in, 
 X. 151), when Asquith declared that, if a fresh dissolution 
 took place, no Liberal Ministry would take office except 
 on conditions involving the immediate passing into law of 
 the nation's decision. On April 26th, at the Albert Hall, 
 Mr. Balfour told the Primrose League that this impHed 
 promise to induce the Sovereign to make such a use of his 
 prerogative as to create Peers threatened the country, not 
 only with a revolution, but with a revolution which carried 
 within it the seeds of other revolutions. This, of course, 
 has always been said of all great changes, whether beneficent 
 or otherwise. In any case that was the deplorable state 
 of feeling which the King found rending the country when 
 he returned from abroad. But one stumbUng-block had 
 been removed. The much-abused and rejected Finance 
 Bill of the previous year, after surviving endless amend- 
 ments and criticism, had passed the Commons on April 27th, 
 and on the day of his return, after only three hours' debate 
 in the Lords, it passed through all its stages preparatory 
 to receiving the Royal Assent on April 29th. 
 
 But the King, alas 1 was to take no further part in the 
 political life of the nation ; and his death on May 6th 
 threw his subjects into more than ordinary grief for the 
 loss of a Sovereign long endeared to them by the ties of 
 a political sympathy and of a community of interest in all 
 varieties of the pleasures of life. Even in an enemy country, 
 such as Germany had become, it was felt that a great 
 political force had vanished from the world, and there was 
 the fullest recognition and admiration of his qualities as a 
 statesman. 
 
THE END AND RESULTS OF THE REIGN 25» 
 
 And in his own country seldom had a Sovereign been 
 more beloved of his people. It was felt that he had success- 
 fully erected impassable barriers against foreign hostiUty* 
 5ven Count Reventlow did justice to the skill and constancy 
 with which the King, from the beginning of his reign to 
 its end, had pursued this definite aim, and striven to reduce 
 the German Empire to a secondary place in the European 
 community (394). The Foreign Secretaries of his time,. 
 Lord Lansdowne and Sir E. Grey, belonging to different 
 political parties, knew no difference of party in pursuit of 
 their Sovereign's plan of forming a league of defence against 
 a common foe. But, as Lord Esher has well pointed out,. 
 Defence and Offence tend in practice to become synonymous 
 words. *' The British people," he wrote, '* are warlike and 
 aggressive," and have never contemplated in their military 
 plans nothing but mere operations of defence (Influence of 
 King Edward, 185). And so it came to pass that a policy 
 declared to be one of defence against Germany was taken 
 in that country for a policy of definite hostility. And in 
 every country it is this implication of oifence in the word 
 " defence " which keeps alive in perpetuity the chronic 
 malaise of the world. 
 
 The King's reputation for statesmanship must always 
 rest on the success and the consequence of his policy for 
 the encirclement of Germany. It has often been denied 
 that this was his policy ; it was only a ** prevalent theory "" 
 in Germany, according to Mr. Cuthbert Maugham in the 
 Annual Register (1910, 114). And Sir E. Grey, wrote Count 
 Benckendorff, the Russian Ambassador in London, on 
 January 26, 19 12, always denied that there had been any 
 wish to isolate Germany ; for that such isolation would 
 constitute a danger to the world's peace, and it would be 
 a mistake to attempt to destroy the Triple Alliance 
 (Siehert, 743). 
 
 But, if the whole thing was a myth and a delusion, on 
 what does the King's reputation rest ? And if the impres- 
 sion was false, that the Dual and Triple Entente were 
 meant as a warning or menace to Germany, what misfor- 
 
260 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 tune could have been greater than the creation of an 
 impression which produced in Europe such an atmosphere 
 of war ? The effect of the German error, if error it was, 
 was disastrous in the highest degree, and it is by the 
 results of pohtical action rather than by its intention that 
 the merits of statesmen must be judged. 
 
 And how little was done to prevent such an impression 
 of hostihty to Germany from becoming the current creed of 
 the political world is shown not only by the universality in 
 Germany of the behef in the isolation policy, but by its 
 general acceptance both in neutral countries like Belgium 
 and in our own country. The Belgian Ministers in the chief 
 Courts of Europe were of one accord on this subject, nor 
 can they have had any motive for collusion. M. de Cartier, 
 Belgian Charge d'Affaires in London, writes on March 28th, 
 1907, of " the whole effort " of English diplomacy as 
 " directed to the isolation of Germany.'* And so Baron 
 Greindl, from Berlin on April 17, 1907, writes of *' the 
 campaign to isolate Germany '* as being ** personally directed 
 with as much perseverance as success by His Majesty King 
 Edward VII." Count de Lalaing, from London, writes on 
 May 24th of the same year of King Edward as not having 
 been " above putting his personal influence at the service " 
 of this isolation poUcy ; and on June 19, 1907, of England's 
 policy as determined " by every sort of means to isolate 
 the German Empire." Again, Baron Greindl writes on 
 January 27, 1908 : " M. Delcasse plumes himself on having 
 preserved the world's peace, thanks to the campaign for 
 the isolation of Germany that he carried on in concert 
 with the King of England." And the same witness attests 
 the existence in England of the same behef as held and 
 propagated by our Press. The mistrust between England 
 and Germany, he says, was " still further fostered by the 
 personal zeal shown by the King of England in making 
 tntenics with the whole world, excepting Germany, and yet 
 he has no grievance against her that can be stated. The 
 Press makes it worse by representing each success won by 
 England in the field of foreign pohtics as contributing to 
 
THE END AND RESULTS OF THE REIGN 261 
 
 the isolation of Germany as its final object " (May 30^ 
 1907). Nor can there be any doubt that it was to the 
 general belief in the policy thus attributed to the King 
 that his great popularity at home was mainly due. " The 
 King and his counsellors/* wrote Mr. Robert Blatchford^ 
 editor of the Clarion, in the Daily Mail of December 14^ 
 1909, " have strained every nerve to establish ententes 
 with Russia and with Italy ; and have formed an entente 
 with France, and as well with Japan. Why ? To isolate 
 Germany." A belief, however universal, may be erroneous^ 
 but, if it was so in this case, on what distinctly does the 
 King's title rest as a statesman who made peace his first 
 object ? 
 
 In this respect he can only be judged by the good and 
 bad consequences that his policy entailed. On the credit 
 side stands our reconciliation with France and with Russia : 
 two results of incalculable value to his country. On the 
 other side stands that enmity with Germany which was the 
 sure seed of future war. By the time the King died almost 
 the whole of Europe stood in battle array against Germany. 
 Hardly a year passed between 1904 and 1910 in which the 
 rival camps of Europe did not narrowly escape from coming 
 to blows ; the whole reign was a series of dangerous crises ; 
 nor is there any evidence to show that any of these, like the 
 Bosnian crisis of 1908 and 1909, were passed in safety in con- 
 sequence of any action taken by the King. And only four 
 years after his death the war began, with the several com- 
 batants ranged against one another in exact accordance 
 with the plan marked out for them. 
 
 But, though the whole reign was a preparation and 
 education for a war accepted as inevitable, such a war as 
 ensued could have had no place in the King's wishes. He 
 would have sickened at the bare thought of the horror, 
 had he foreseen the nature of the spectre he was unwittingly 
 evoking by entangling us in the fortunes of France in her 
 age-long conflict with her neighbours beyond the Rhine. 
 France's desire for revenge for 1870, for the recovery of 
 her lost provinces, was natural enough ; it never lapsed ; 
 
1262 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 and the King was the last man to be ignorant of this longing 
 ior revenge, or to be unaware that the primary condition 
 of any attachment to France was assistance in its satisfac- 
 tion. Can it be that we were beguiled or entrapped into 
 a poHcy that had this hope behind it, and ultimately its 
 reahzation ? Was the King, or was M. Delcasse, the real 
 author of the Dual Entente and of its secret commitments ? 
 In either case it is far from evident that even the peaceful 
 occupation of Egypt was not a dear price to pay for 
 getting entangled in the Franco-German quarrel and becom- 
 ing an instrument of French ambitions. For it is highly 
 probable that, but for our backing, no fresh Franco-German 
 war would have been fought in 1914, and therefore no 
 European war : to the undeniable and incalculable benefit 
 of this country and of the world. The sum of 8,000 millions 
 is a very small part of the price we have had to pay for 
 departing from our traditional policy of abstention from 
 Continental quarrels, and for committing ourselves for 
 generations to come to an attitude of enmity and antipathy 
 to the Teutonic Powers of Europe. No gains that may 
 have accrued to us as the results of the war are likely 
 ever to compensate us for the moral damage of that single 
 consequence. 
 
 The lapse of time has made it possible to take a broad 
 view of the King's reign ; to regard it as a whole, as apart 
 from its isolated episodes to which contemporary judg- 
 ment was necessarily confined. It is now plain that his 
 policy, though achieving peace in some directions, was in 
 essence a policy of war, and one that ended in war. Tlie 
 panic of a German invasion, sustained by the Press during 
 the whole decade, failed of such discouragement as might 
 have prevented a needless enmity to arise between us and 
 Germany. The King seems to have shared the popular 
 belief in the will and power of Germany to invade us, 
 despite Lord Fisher's ridicule of the notion, though lie 
 shrank from his First Lord's counsel to destroy the German 
 Fleet whilst still in its immaturity. Nor did the King 
 always rise superior to some of the phantom fears that 
 
THE END AND RESULTS OF THE REIGN 26S 
 
 sprang from invented rumours. A case in point occurred 
 when he was Prince of Wales and was much perturbed by 
 an anonymous memorandum that reached him at Copen- 
 hagen to the effect that Germany had sounded Russia and 
 France as to whether they would join her in a war against 
 us with a view to a partition between them of Africa, India, 
 and the Pacific, but that France and Russia had refused 
 the temptation. And the Prince had been told that German 
 Generals were working out a plan of campaign for marching 
 with a Russian army upon Egypt and India. But Eckhard- 
 stein happily disabused him of this nightmare (i66). A 
 somewhat similar story is told by W. S. Blunt of a rumour 
 in 1906, to which the King is said to have lent credence. 
 The rumour was that the Kaiser, as soon as he was ready, 
 meant to throw a corps d'armee or two into our defenceless 
 land, and then proclaim that he had come, not as an enemy 
 to the King, but as his grandmother's grandson, to deliver 
 him from the Socialist gang which was ruining England. 
 Then the Kaiser, in conjunction with the King, would dis- 
 solve Parliament and re-establish the King's autocratic 
 rule as a feudatory of the German Empire {Diaries, ii. 218). 
 The world must have been in a strange state for a pro- 
 gramme of this sort to have found belief anywhere. It was 
 in line with the ridiculous visions of Ger mania Triumphans. 
 The entente with France did not make for the peace 
 of the world, inasmuch as by the nature of things it aroused 
 the alarm of Germany. The King admitted to Eckhard- 
 stein that it was partly meant as a warning to Germany, 
 and Wyndham told Blunt that the promise of military aid 
 to France belonged to it from the first. We were, indeed, 
 not committed to France by a definite treaty that was 
 binding on Parliament, but by a secret understanding that 
 bound us to France by the greatest of all obligations, the 
 obligation of honour. Had it not been so, there was 
 nothing in our differences with Germany that admitted not 
 of pacific settlement. War with Germany was not in 
 itself inevitable, but our pact with France went far so to 
 make it. When Germany came to know or suspect our 
 
^64 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 military and naval conversations or plans for a war against 
 her, mistrust and hostility were bound to arise, and friendly 
 relations to become increasingly difficult. 
 
 King Edward's policy worked itself out with absolute 
 success, and the close connection between his political 
 premises and their conclusion will ensure the permanence 
 of his political fame. But were his premises correct ? 
 Given the premise that Germany was a necessary enemy, 
 and that war with her for maritime supremacy belonged 
 to the unalterable destinies of history, no scheme could have 
 been better conceived or constructed than a coalition of 
 Powers leagued together for her defeat and destruction. 
 But this premise was not only never proved, but was in 
 itself contrary both to evidence and to probability. A 
 cooler judgment of the circumstances of Germany, less 
 regard for the sayings and doings of Admiral Tirpitz and 
 his school, a greater indifference to the clamour of the 
 Pan-German and of our own Jingo Press, would have 
 probably preserved the peace of Europe as effectually as a 
 policy that was mainly based on emotions of groundless 
 alarm. Like the other monarchs of his day. King Edward 
 undoubtedly desired the peace of the world, acquiring 
 ustly the honourable title, previously acquired by Alex- 
 mder III of Russia, of the *' Peace-maker *' {Wiite's 
 Memoirs, 44, 96) ; but he will rank in history rather as a 
 peace-wisher than as a peace-maker, in accordance with 
 the common lot of humanity to wish for one thing and 
 to achieve its opposite. But he was so far happy in the 
 time and circumstance of his death as to be conscious of 
 having lived to effect the removal from his country of an 
 imagined peril, and to be spared all anticipation of that 
 overwhelming disaster to civilization in which all his diplo- 
 matic intrigues and strivings were destined so shortly to 
 end. 
 
 It is needless to follow the events which led to that 
 end after the King's life. With his death the clouds of 
 war lifted for a moment. During nearly the whole of his 
 reign the world had trembled on the brink of war ; on 
 
THE END AND RESULTS OF IHE REIGN 265 
 
 several occasions it had only just been averted ; and how 
 closely the King's life was bound up with that condition of 
 things was shown by the sudden relaxation of tension 
 which followed his decease. In Germany it was believed 
 that King George V was more amicably disposed towards 
 her than his father had been, and would gladly come to 
 some understanding with her (Schiemann, x. 414, Decem- 
 ber 28, 1910). It was hoped that the new reign would 
 usher in improved conditions. Baron Beyens, the Belgian 
 Minister at Berlin, was told that when the Kaiser and the 
 Crown Prince returned from England after the King's 
 funeral, *' both of them were convinced that the frigid 
 terms on which the two Courts had stood for years past 
 were about to be replaced by cordial intimacy, and that 
 the causes of misunderstanding between the two nations 
 would become a thing of the past." Even the Kaiser 
 ceased to be the " monster unto many " that he had been, 
 for years. The sympathy he evinced to the Royal Family 
 in their grief did much to assuage the bitter feelings that 
 had so long been cultivated, and Germany recognized with 
 thankfulness the friendlier feeling extended to him by the 
 Enghsh Press {ib. x. 197, May 25th). 
 
 Accordingly when, in the May of the following year, 191 1, 
 the Kaiser, accompanied by the Kaiserin and the Princess 
 Victoria, again visited London as the guest of the new King, 
 the people lined the streets in rows to see them pass, waiting 
 for hours to witness their return, and cheering them voci- 
 ferously on their re-entrance to Buckingham Palace. Count 
 de Lalaing, then the Belgian Minister in London, noticed 
 how *' this time the atmosphere was much more genial "' 
 than it had been four years before ; there was no longer 
 " the old distrust " that had marked the attitude of the 
 people in 1907 ; the difference struck the observer as 
 " remarkable." " It would seem," he wrote, " as though 
 at the time of those ententes so dear to the late monarch 
 the nation itself was conscious of the character of the 
 policy being pursued towards Germany, and aware that 
 the GoYernment was openly making an attempt to encircle 
 
^66 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 Germany, which could not but create ill-feehng in Berlin." 
 Count Benckendorff confirmed this account writing on 
 May 23, 191 1, of the warm reception accorded by the 
 English Press to the Kaiser personally and to his lamily. 
 PoHtics seem to have been ignored. In a long talk between 
 the Kaiser and Mr. Asquith, the chief subject of conversa- 
 ;tion was the mutual influence of the races of mankind 
 upon one another and the superiority of some of them 
 over others. So Mr. Asquith, when asked about it, told 
 the King (Siehert, 418). For the moment it seemed as if 
 an Anglo-German Entente no longer lay beyond the better 
 possibilities of the near future. 
 
 But this proved to be no more than a fallacious gleam 
 of hope ; for the French occupation of Fez again caused 
 the Moroccan question to become acute. Germany replied 
 to the challenge thus thrown out to her by the sending of 
 the Panther gunboat to Agadir in July 1911, to which 
 Mr. Lloyd George, with the previous approval of Mr. 
 Asquith and Sir E. Grey, replied by a provocatively belli- 
 cose speech at the Mansion House, thereby reviving 
 all the old animosity, and causing war again to loom on 
 the horizon. Vain were all later efforts to restore amicable 
 relations between two countries that ought never to have 
 become estranged ; there was henceforth no real possi- 
 bihty of arresting the downward rush to that mutual con- 
 flict which the events of so many years had fixed indelibly 
 on the book of Fate. And in this rush all the countries 
 concerned had their share of responsibility. But the result 
 proved how vain is the attempt to keep the world at peace 
 by setting one group of Powers in deadly antagonism 
 against another group. That attempt reached its fore- 
 doomed failure, and the spirit of Militarism, so long culti- 
 vated by every nation as the sheet-anchor of its safety, 
 ended in a struggle amongst all of them for their very 
 'existence. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Africa, German South-west and 
 
 East, 115 
 Agadir incident, the, 266 
 Alge9iras Conference, the, 142, 
 
 I45-I73» 189, 195 
 AlUance with Germany aimed at 
 by leading EngHsh Con- 
 servative statesmen, 25 
 Anglo-French Entente, 84-113 
 
 its foundations, 66-7 
 Anglo- Japanese Treaty, 46 
 Anti-German propaganda, 52-4, 
 
 63, 199, 216, 228 
 Arbitration, 67-8, 10 1-2 
 Asquith, Mr. — • 
 
 becomes Prime Minister, 205 
 his attitude to the Boer War, 
 20-1 
 Assassination of King and Queen 
 
 of Servia 1903, 72 
 Austria — 
 
 and the Triple Alliance, 75-6, 
 
 191, 251 
 annexes Bosnia and Herze- 
 govina, 222, 231 
 saves the Alge9iras Confer- 
 ence, 160 
 war with Servia averted by 
 German diplomacy, 237 
 
 Bagdad Railway question, the, 
 
 60, 68-9, 159, 195 
 Balfour, Mr., his Education Bill, 
 
 48, 61 
 Balkans, the, 70-1, 120, 223' 
 Barbarism in war, 21, 36-41 
 Bebel, 108-9 
 Bismarck — 
 
 and Russia, 32-3 
 
 and the Triple Alliance, 55 
 
 Bosnian crisis, the, 223 
 Billow, Count — 
 
 averts conflict with England 
 during Boer War, 74-5 
 
 becomes Chancellor, 33 
 
 defends the Kaiser, 246 
 
 distrusted by English Minis- 
 ters, 24 
 
 explains German interests in 
 Manchuria, 17 
 
 explains meaning of Weltpoli- 
 iik. 47 
 
 his long duel with Bebel, 108 
 
 on disarmament, 179-80 
 
 on the Tweedmouth letter, 
 208-9 
 
 replies to Mr. Chamberlain, 
 30.38 
 
 resigns office, 248 
 
 views on intervention in S.A. 
 war, 31-2 
 
 works for agreement between 
 Germany and Triple En- 
 tente^ 139-40, 168-70, 185, 
 201-2, 226-9, 240, 249 
 
 Campbell-Bannerman, Sir Henry, 
 
 20-1, 35, 42, 63, 142, 185 
 Casablanca, 196 
 Centre Party in the Reichstag, 
 
 the, 174-5 
 Chamberlain, Mr. Joseph, 38-40, 
 
 47, 50-1, 68, 73 
 China, 15, 17, 45, 48, 56 
 Chinese labour question, the, 96-7, 
 
 144, 147, 149 
 Colonial Preference, 73, 178 
 Colonial Premiers and Imperial 
 
 defence, 54 
 Concentration camps, 19, 36, 48 
 
 967 
 
ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD \U 
 
 Congo, the, ii6 
 Czar, the — 
 
 in Germany, 77 
 
 meets Kaiser at Reval, 55-6, 
 at Bjorkoe, 130 
 
 visits England, 240 
 
 Delcass<S, M. — 
 
 and Count Bulow, 125 
 
 his anti-German policy, 25, 94 
 
 meetings with Edward VII, 
 
 66, 123 
 militarist speech in 1908, 205 
 resigns, 125-8 
 Dilke, Sir Charles, 11 -12 
 Dogger Bank incident, the, 105, 
 
 109 
 Dual EnteTiie, the, 87, 92, 94, 
 
 III, 152-3 
 Duma, the, 115 
 
 Eckhardstein, Baron, 23-5, 31, 
 
 42, 58, 67, 8g, 120, 162 
 Edward VII— 
 
 and Clemenceau, 23 
 and the Boer War, 18, 50 
 and the Bosnian crisis, 223 
 and the entente cordiale, ^^, 
 
 157-8, 181 
 and the Kaiser, 22, 24, 58-9, 
 
 134 
 and the Morocco question, 91 
 anti-German bias, 120, 135, 
 
 1 70-1, 202, 206, 260 
 as a constitutional monarch, 
 
 5. 14 
 as Prince of Wales, 11 -13 
 his death, 258 
 his place in history, 5 
 his political sympathies with 
 
 France, 13 ; with Germany, 
 
 24 
 
 his poUtical travels, 63-83, 180 
 
 portrayed by Mr. Legge, 13, 
 
 22 ; by Lord Redesdale 
 
 and Lord Suffield, 13 
 
 relations with Austria, 76, 191, 
 
 194 
 summary of his policy, 262-4 
 
 Edward VII— 
 
 visits Berlin, 233-5 ; Den- 
 mark, 214 ; France, 66 ; 
 Italy, 66 ; Portugal, 65 ; 
 Spain, 182 
 
 Entente cordiale, the, 88-9, 92, 95, 
 127, 129 
 
 Fisher, Sir John, 163-4, i99-2oi» 
 
 211-13, 241 
 Foreign Of&ce, relations of Ed- 
 
 ward VII with, 5 
 France, 22-7 
 
 allied with Russia, 33 
 
 entente with England, 84-113, 
 
 makes convention with Siam, 
 
 61 
 overtures to Italy, 77 
 Franco-Spanish Declaration, the» 
 
 90-1 
 Fuel of war, the, 28-9 
 
 General Election of 1906, the, 
 
 145 
 German authorities quoted, 6-8 
 Germany — 
 
 and her colonies, 172-3 
 and Queen Victoria, 25 
 and the Alger9iras Conference, 
 
 162 
 and the Boer War, 31 
 and the Russo-Japanese War, 
 
 24 
 estrangement with England, 
 
 38, 45. 5i» 67, 228 
 her " place in the sun," 48 
 her treatment of Poland, 34, 57 
 her unpopularity, 34 
 incHnes to Russia, 106-7, 239 
 menaced by Neo-Slav move- 
 ment, 251 
 relations with Austria, 34, 229 
 relations with England, i4-i7» 
 
 22-34. 75. 79, 86 
 supports Russian policy in the 
 
 Balkans, 71 
 Treaty with England concern- 
 ing China, 45-6 
 Grey, Sir Edward, 63 
 
INDEX 
 
 269 
 
 Gwynn's Life of Dilke quoted, ii, 
 
 Jgnotus ill the Fortnightly Review, 
 
 27-S> 53 
 Imperialism, 12, 28-30, 41, 48, 89, 
 
 96-7, 99-100 
 International Law, anomalies of, 
 
 32 
 Invasion scares, 215, 242 
 Ireland visited by King Ed- 
 ward VII in 1903, 74 
 Isvolsky, 159, 192, 219, 229 
 Italy, 102, 169, 183-6 
 
 accord with England, 78, 183-4 
 relations with France, 78, 102 
 
 Japan — 
 
 inclines to war with Russia, 71 
 Treaty with England 1902, 46, 
 
 136 
 Treaties with France and 
 
 Russia, 186 
 war with Russia in 1904, 84, 
 
 87 
 Journalists in Berhn, English, 
 186-7 
 
 Kaiser, The German — 
 
 a great pacifist, 239 
 
 and the Boer War, 14-16, 31 
 
 and Turkey, 70 
 
 at Tangier, 122 
 
 his alleged responsibility for 
 Russo-Japanese War, 84 
 
 his policy towards Austria, 33 
 
 his unfortunate speeches, 80-1, 
 121-2, 141 
 
 his views on the Alge9iras 
 Conference, 150-1 
 
 makes overtures to Russia, 
 106-8, 114 
 
 meets Edward VII at Kiel, 
 103-4 
 
 meets the Czar at Bjorkoe, 130 
 at Reval, 55-6 
 at Wilhelmshohe, 190 
 
 mistrusted by English Minis- 
 ters, 24 
 
 Kaiser, The German — 
 
 visits England, 14, 22, 58, 60, 
 
 197-9, 265 
 writes to Lord Tweedmouth. 
 206-8 
 Kiel, meeting between Edward 
 
 VII and Kaiser at, 103 
 Kipling, Rudyard, 54 
 Kruger, President, 16, 23 
 
 Lascelles removed from Berlin, 
 
 Sir F., 213 
 Liberal Party, the — 
 
 and the Liberal League, 177 
 attempts by Lord Rosebery 
 
 to control policy, 11 8-9 
 divided by South African War, 
 
 19-21, 43 
 in 1906, 146 
 tendency to re-unite, 73 
 Licensing Bill, the, 96 
 Lords, House of, 177, 205, 253 
 
 Manchuria, 17, 46, 56, 71-2 
 Militarism, 80, 132, 147, 178, 266 
 Milner, Lord, 147-8 
 Moroccan Convention, the, 87-90, 
 
 93-4. 117 
 Morocco crisis, the, 114-44, 151, 
 195, 216, 235, 266 
 
 Northcliffe, Lord, 143-4 
 
 Pacifist efforts, 142, 165-6, 214- 
 
 15 
 Pan-Germanism, 28-30, 45, 81-3, 
 
 94, 137 
 Persia, 56-7, 69, 193 
 Personal element in foreign afEairs, 
 
 the. 34 
 Poincare, M., 66-7 
 Poland, 34, 57, 115 
 Portugal, 65 
 Press, the — 
 
 criticized by the Kaiser, 243-44 
 in America, 183 
 in England, 86, 93, 104, 137, 
 142-4, 156, 166, 179, 188-9, 
 206 
 
270 
 
 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD VII 
 
 Press, the — 
 
 in Germany, 82, 169, 188 
 Pretoria, occupation of, 19 
 Protection Crusade, Mr. Cham- 
 berlain's, 73 
 
 ^een Victoria, 11-12, 25 
 
 Redesdale, Lord, 171 
 Repington's letter to The Times, 
 
 Colonel, 207 
 Reval— 
 
 Edward VII meets Czar, 217 
 
 Kaiser meets Czar, 55 
 Roberts, Lord, 119, 146, 179 
 Roosevelt, Theodore, 11 1-2, 115 
 Rouvier, M., 125-7, 139, 157 
 Russia — 
 
 alliance with France, 33 
 
 and Germany, 95 
 
 and Japan, 71, 84 
 
 and Manchuria, 17, 71 
 
 courted by England, France, 
 and Germany, 26-7, 32, 55, 
 133, 160, 190, 193, 239 
 
 imperialism, 97-8 
 
 Neo-Slav movement, 251 
 
 receives legislative Duma, 115 
 
 revolution, 158 
 Russian Convention, the, 193-4 
 Russo-Japanese War, the — 
 
 attitude of England and Ger- 
 many, 95 
 its origins, 84-5, 105 
 
 Servia — 
 
 attitude towards the 1903 
 assassinations, 72 
 
 diplomatic relations with Eng- 
 land restored, 112 
 
 indignant at Austrian annexa- 
 tion of Bosnia, 223, 236 
 
 Siam and France, 61, 89 
 Socialism, 175-6 
 South African War, the, iS-50 
 and Liberal Imperialists, 20-1, 
 
 43 
 
 concentration camps, 19 
 
 condemned by English Lil)eral 
 Party, 35 
 
 estimate of, 49 
 
 intervention attempted, 31, 44, 
 48 
 
 its unpopularity on the Con- 
 tinent, 18, 31 
 
 Kitchener's Proclamation, 30, 
 42 
 
 reparations, 50 
 
 Tariff Reform, 112, 119 
 Thibetan Expedition, 99-100 
 The Times, 12, 25, 69 
 
 anti-German propaganda, 5 2-4, 
 
 63, 86, 104, 143, 196 
 Colonel Repington's letter, 207 
 Tien-tsin, 17 
 Treitschke, no, 249 
 Triple Alliance, the, 23-5, 55, 66. 
 
 75-7. 184 
 Triple Entente sealed by Reval 
 
 meeting, the, 218 
 Turkey, 70, 120, 150, 162, 222 
 Tweedmouth's letter from the 
 
 Kaiser, Lord, 206-10 
 
 United States, the, relations with 
 Germany, 64, 78 
 
 Venezuela episode, the, 60, 63-4, 
 
 78 
 Vereeniging, meeting at, 49 
 
 Weltpolitik, 47-8, 257 
 Wilhelm II as pacifist, 239 
 
 Printed in Great Hiitain ty 
 
 VKWIN BKUTHKRS, LIUITl!;!), THE ORtSXAM TRESii, LONDiv}; AND WOUNO 
 
England To-Day «Jre™°wood* 
 
 Preface by A. G. GARDINER. 
 Cr. 8r«. 5/. net. 
 
 This is a social study of our time. It is, the writer and publishers 
 believe, the first attempt yet made exhaustively to examine and discuss 
 the new condition of England created by the war and the peace. There 
 are sections dealing with the workers, the middle classes, the new and the 
 old rich, tlie revolution in the countryside, and England's place in world 
 relations. 
 
 What Next in Europe ? 
 
 By frank a. VANDERLIP 
 Demy Svo. Ss. 6d. net, 
 
 "Mr. Vanderlip's ideas are magnificent, and deserve the fullest 
 consideration." — Spectator. 
 
 " It deserves careful study, for Mr. Vanderlip is a banker and economist 
 of note." — Daily Mail, 
 
 The Making of Rural Europe 
 
 By HELEN DOUGLAS IRVINE 
 With a Foreword by G. K. CHESTERTON 
 
 Cr. %vo. 7/. 6d. net. 
 
 A history of landholding in Europe which shows the evolution since the 
 Middle Ages of the peasant and the agricultural labourer, and thus gives 
 the historical background of the Green Rising, so important in Central 
 and Eastern Europe and hardly less so in Italy and Spain. Conditions in 
 the Roman Campagna in the tenth century are taken as a starting-point, 
 and the final chapters deal with rural syndicalism and agricultural co- 
 operation at the present time. An attempt is made to explain the recent 
 agrarian revolutions in the Succession States, Germany and Russia and 
 the chances of similar movements elsewhere. 
 
 The New Poland 
 
 By major PHILLIPS 
 Demy %vo. 12/. 6d. net. 
 
 A vivid impressionist sketch based on intimate personal experience of 
 the activities of the new Polish State since the close of the Great War. 
 The pen portraits of Filsudski, Witos the ' Peasant Premier ' and Pade- 
 rcwski, are espeyially arresting and striking, while the sketches of Polish 
 scenery and customs are such as could have only come from one who had 
 entered very fully into the life of the country and people he describes. 
 
 LONDON : GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD. 
 RUSKIN HOUSE, 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C. i. 
 
txu^ 
 
 FOURTEEN DAY USE 
 
 RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED 
 
 This book is due on the last date stamped below, or 
 
 on the date to which renewed. 
 
 Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. 
 
 1OApr'55K0 
 
 tm23'66^2RCa 
 
 \ m 1 8 t 96T 2 6 
 
 IN OTACKS 
 
 f^i. R ^71956 
 
 JliN2lG7- pp . 
 
 
 :i.i--Mmh\n 
 
 'W^^ 
 
 «ARl<il9S3 ta 
 
 JAN 4^9^ 
 
 12Aug-63j«' 
 
 RECEIVED 
 
 MAR 10 '69 'HAM 
 
 l%S<^ 
 
 LOAN DEPT, 
 
 i%^cr 
 
 REC'D LD 
 
 OCT 15 '63 -7 PM 
 
 MAY g 1966 6 8 
 
 LD 21-100ot-2,'56 
 (B139822)476 
 
 General Library 
 
 University of California 
 
 Berkeley 
 
 i^ 
 
LIBRARY USE 
 
 RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED 
 
 LOAN DEPT. 
 
 THIS BOOK IS DUE BEFORE CLOSING TIME 
 ON LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW 
 
 Rf USt 
 
 M 19 |9K^ 
 
 RCC'D L 
 
 JUL 1 9 ' 6b -4 H 
 
 LD 62A-50Tn-2,'64 
 (E3494sl0)9412A 
 
 General Library 
 
 University of California 
 
 Berkeley